Tomorrow evening Madison City Council members will convene to consider whether the ordinance requiring taxi operators to be available 24 hours a day monopolizes the local cab industry.

For decades, three cab companies have controlled the market. Some claim this has caused prices to rise, leading local citizens to question the city’s policy.

One citizen who has vocally criticized the city’s taxi policy is Mike Roach, a cab driver for more than a decade and a former employee of all three major Madison cab companies. According to Roach, the cab fares in Madison rank in the top 10 percent of 252 mid-size cities across the nation.

“Madison is unique in that cab fares are not set by the city, but by the cab companies themselves,” Roach said. “Thus they are free to raise fares whenever they want.”

Tom Royston, manager of the Badger Cab Company, disagrees with Roach and presented a strong argument as to why small cab operators will have a negative effect on the industry.

“All it takes is three cabs, but the reason that more cab companies have not entered the market is because it is not that lucrative,” says Royston. “There’s not an unlimited supply of riders, and if the industry was open entry, the small operators would gravitate to the areas where the most business is — the airport and State Street on Friday and Saturday.”

Current Madison law states that for a new taxi company to enter the market, it must have three cabs and run 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

For years, Roach has lobbied the city to allow him to run his own business with one cab for eight hours a day, but he feels that they are using a disorderly conduct conviction he received 10 years ago against him, and thus against the idea of allowing small cab companies to operate in the city.

“They think that, because I had a fight with my brother ten years ago, I am not reliable enough to run my own cab company,” Roach said. “In the 10 years that I was a driver, I never harmed anybody, and no one has ever alleged that I have harmed anybody.”

Bill Knobeloch of Madison’s Traffic Engineering Division said that while Roach might be fit as a cab driver, his qualifications as the operator of a company also have to be evaluated if he is to receive a license. The Traffic Engineering Division hears appeals from cab drivers who are denied permits.

“The operator of a company will be supervising other people,” said Knobeloch. “Now we’re talking about someone higher than other people, deciding whether to hire, fire, promote, etc. That’s why there are two different standards for drivers and owners.”

But some city officials say that Roach’s legal trouble is not the issue. Ald. Steve Holtzman, District 19, said that the current level of regulation in Madison simply does not allow the single operator to go into business.

“There is a commonly used metaphor at the Council, comparing the small cab operator to someone who wants to set up a food cart. This can be viewed by some as competing with a restaurant, but a food-cart operator only has to be open during peak periods, doesn’t have to provide a bathroom and doesn’t have to pay property taxes,” Holtzman said. “Food carts add to the urban flavor of Madison and enhance the environment in which restaurants operate. I’m envisioning there being a similar scenario for small cab operators.”

With such a fierce debate between large cab operators like Royston and the small entrepreneurs like Roach, the outcome of Tuesday’s meeting is uncertain.

Royston says that the 24/7 clause of the current law is not about preventing small entrepreneurs from starting their own businesses.

“24/7 is about guaranteeing that everyone in Madison has a right to a taxi cab and that those cabs will go anywhere in the city and not refuse service,” Royston said. “If people think that the market opening up to one cab operations is going to improve service, that’s ridiculous. City after city where this has been tried has proven to be an abysmal failure.”

According to Royston, 99 percent of the business for cab companies in Madison comes by phone. He says that unless a customer is trying to get home on Friday or Saturday evenings, the one-cab operations will be useless.

“If you have one cab, you’re going to gravitate to where the money is, and it’s not good for the community,” Royston said. “In other cities, rather than having brought down the rates, the condition of the equipment has worsened, and the one-cab operators have been refusing service. The bottom line is that the one-cab operations are not going to help the general public one bit.”