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Image: Txi Point

The passage of key amendments to the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill looks to significantly reshape how taxi and private hire vehicle (PHV) licensing is enforced across England, with far-reaching implications for drivers, operators and licensing authorities.

Amendments 299 to 304, agreed in the House of Lords, establish a clearer legal framework focusing on the temporary suspension powers that have become central to the Bill’s reforms. For the first time there is a formal definition of “enforcement area”, which effectively extends the reach of licensing officers beyond traditional local authority boundaries.

Under the new provisions, an enforcement officer’s authority will cover both their home licensing area and, in specific circumstances, the entirety of England. This applies particularly where action is taken against licences issued by their own authority but being used elsewhere, reinforcing the Government’s push to close longstanding gaps linked to out-of-area working.

The changes provide the legal backbone to earlier provisions allowing immediate licence suspensions, ensuring that enforcement activity is not constrained by geography when public safety concerns arise. For the taxi and PHV sector, this marks a structural shift away from a purely localised regulatory model towards a more integrated national enforcement approach.

Alongside this expanded reach, the amendments introduce detailed definitions covering every aspect of the licensing system. These include “regulated driver licence”, “regulated vehicle licence” and “regulated PHV operator licence”, explicitly bringing drivers, vehicles and operators within the same enforcement framework.

By consolidating these definitions in Clause 72, the legislation removes ambiguity that has historically complicated enforcement and legal interpretation. The move ensures that all licence types are clearly recognised in law when suspension powers are exercised, reducing the risk of legal challenges and inconsistent application across authorities.

Source: TaxiPoint

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Image: Santa Cruz Works

The first quarter of 2026 has been an active start to the year for NEMTAC®, with meaningful progress across several initiatives focused on standards development, education, data, and industry collaboration. One of the most visible areas of momentum is NEMTAC Transform™, which will take place August 16–19, 2026 at the JW Marriott Grande Lakes in Orlando, Florida. With this issue of NEMT Today releasing on April 15, we are now about four months away from bringing the industry together again.

Interest in the conference has been exceptionally strong. Exhibit booths are already selling at a rapid pace, and organizations from across the NEMT ecosystem have begun securing their participation early. The Orlando venue provides an outstanding setting for the event, and we look forward to welcoming providers, brokers, health plans, regulators, technology partners, insurers, and other industry leaders for several days of education, collaboration, and forward-looking discussion.

To make participation easier for organizations of all sizes, NEMTAC is also offering group registration discounts and day passes, allowing companies to bring additional team members or attend specific days of programming. NEMTAC’s education programs continue to evolve as well. Over the past several months we have updated and strengthened our course offerings to better reflect the operational realities and safety expectations facing NEMT providers today. Development also continues on the NEMT Accident-Avoidance Course, being created in partnership with the Texas Engineering Extension Service (TEEX).

This program is designed to strengthen driver preparation and improve operational safety across the industry. During the first quarter, NEMTAC also conducted the industry rate survey and launched a call for participation in the NEMT Data Repository initiative. These efforts are intended to support more data-informed decision making, helping establish a credible foundation of operational information that can inform research, policy discussions, and long-term planning for the industry. Industry engagement has remained a priority as well. Joel Smith presented at the NMEDA Conference, and Board Chair Tanya Woods Copeland and I attended the CMS Quality Conference in Baltimore. In addition, we will have participated in the Mobile Integrated Health (MIH) Summit and the ANSI Regional Conference in Scottsdale, ensuring that the perspective of the NEMT industry continues to be represented in broader healthcare transportation and standards discussions.

Looking ahead to the second quarter, NEMTAC will also participate in the CTAA Expo in May, where we will host a booth as part of the association exchange between our organizations. Opportunities like this allow us to engage transportation leaders across sectors and continue important conversations about the role of non-emergency medical transportation within the broader mobility and healthcare access ecosystem. NEMTAC also continues to expand the reach of NEMT Today and our online industry resources through social media, video interviews, and regular industry updates. These platforms allow us to share operational insights, highlight industry leaders, and provide practical resources for professionals across the country.

If you find these resources valuable, we encourage you to follow NEMTAC on LinkedIn and share posts that help inform colleagues across the industry. As we move into the second quarter of 2026, our focus remains clear: advancing standards, strengthening education, supporting data informed decision making, and bringing the industry together through collaboration and shared learning. The NEMT industry continues to evolve, and the work we do together today will help shape the system that patients, families, and healthcare providers depend on every day.

Read the entire Spring 2026 Edition here.

You can also find out more about Transform 2026, including registration, sponsorship opportunities, and exhibitor information here.

California Gives Truck Makers an Ultimatum: No Price Transparency, No Money

California Senate Bill 1213 is calling out truck makers for playing games with zero-emission truck pricing by requiring manufacturers to make truck pricing public if they want access to the state’s Hybrid and Zero-Emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project (HVIP) and Clean Transportation Programs.

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Uber's Anthropic AI Push Hits a Wall—CTO Says Budget Struggles Despite $3.4B Spend

Uber Technologies, Inc is learning the hard way that scaling AI isn't just about speed—it's about cost. Despite spending $3.4 billion on research and development, the company has already exhausted its planned AI budget just months into 2026. According to The Information, Chief Technology Officer Praveen Neppalli Naga said Uber is now "back to the drawing board" after a surge in the use of AI coding tools, particularly Anthropic's Claude Code, has blown past internal expectations.

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Lyft is Building the Infrastructure Robotaxis Can’t Avoid

Lyft gave new details about how exactly it plans to manage Google’s Waymo fleet for their partnership in Nashville. Lyft’s Flexdrive unit is constructing an 80,000-square-foot facility — roughly the size of 1.5 football fields — slated to open this fall that will service, charge, and maintain Waymo’s autonomous vehicles.

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Canadians May Go Electric As EV Market Widens, Expert Says

Although new motor vehicle sales dropped for February, according to Statistics Canada’s latest report released Thursday, zero-emission vehicles (ZEV) have taken a larger piece of the pie of all sales compared to this time last year. There were just over 124-thousand new motor vehicles sold in Canada in February, down nearly one per cent compared to the same month last year. Sales of new passenger cars fell nearly four per cent, while sales of new trucks saw a smaller decline at half a percentage point.

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Tunnelling Underway for the Largest Subway Expansion in Canadian History

A new milestone has been reached on the Ontario line, part of the province’s nearly $70-billion investment into public transit. Premier Doug Ford and Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow met in the city today to announce tunnelling work on the Ontario line has started. Once complete, it will run from Exhibition Place to the Eglinton Crosstown LRT at Don Mills Road in Toronto, with 15 stations and more than 40 transit connections. 

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Canadian Travellers May Face Higher Airfares for Months Even If Oil Flows Resume Soon

Skyrocketing jet fuel costs are threatening to push airfares up and flight numbers down well into the peak summer travel season, even as signs of hope emerge that oil flows from the Persian Gulf are resuming.

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Cachet Launches Adaptive Insurance in France for Turo Car-Sharing

Under the arrangement, Turo will use Cachet’s insurance product ecosystem to manage policy distribution at scale and strengthen claims oversight. Cachet acts as broker and technology provider, building the infrastructure that Turo operates within, while Baloise LU provides underwriting capacity.

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Bolt Launches AI-Equipped E-Scooter to Boost Compliant Riding

The onboard AI system works in tandem with the dashboard display, monitoring riding behaviour and delivering real-time alerts within the rider’s line of sight to encourage compliance. It can detect pavement riding and issue warnings to riders “almost immediately”. If the behaviour continues, the scooter can automatically reduce speed to discourage it. It also recognises when riders enter restricted or low-speed zones, triggering real-time alerts on the display.

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Vafeades Highlights the Need for an EU Response to the Challenges Facing Transport

Minister of Transport, Communications and Works, Alexis Vafeades, highlighted the need for an "ambitious and realistic" European response to the challenges facing the transport sector in the light of the Middle East crisis. He was addressing the meeting of the heads of transport administration in Limassol.

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Multi-Agency Crackdown Targets Taxi and Rideshare Compliance at Perth Airport

A joint multi-agency compliance operation targeting taxi and rideshare services has identified a number of breaches at Perth Airport, as authorities respond to increasing reports of industry non-compliance. The four-hour operation, led by the Department of Transport and Major Infrastructure (DTMI), inspected more than 100 vehicles operating at the airport rank last week. The campaign focused on ensuring compliance with obligations under the Transport (Road Passenger Services) Act 2018, including the use of meters and the proper display of driver authorisation.

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Maharashtra: Cab Drivers Announce to Launch Hunger Strike Against Ola, Uber and Rapido from April 20

Cab drivers’ unions in Maharashtra have announced an indefinite hunger strike starting Monday, April 20, 2026, after failing to secure permission for protests over the weekend, an official statement said on Friday. The protest will take place simultaneously at multiple locations, including Azad Maidan in Mumbai, Samvidhan Chowk in Nagpur, and the District Collector’s office in Pune, the union said. The agitation is directed against app-based transport companies such as Ola, Uber, and Rapido. The unions allege that these companies have been repeatedly violating government rules.

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Expect 300,000 New Uber Motorbike Riders in South Africa

Uber plans to greatly expand its motorcycle-based e-hailing service in South Africa even as concerns grow over the safety of such an option. The company recently announced it would invest R5 billion in the country’s mobility, delivery, and digital economies at the South Africa Investment Conference. Uber said it believes it can establish as many as 300,000 new earning opportunities for individuals on its Uber Moto service over the next decade. Uber Moto is a relatively new service that the platform introduced in early 2026.

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Image: Santa Cruz Works

When JoeBen Bevirt founded the company now known as Joby Aviation in 2009, electric aircraft were on few people’s minds. Tesla’s first electric vehicle, the Roadster, had arrived on the market just one year earlier, and it was not yet evident that EVs would transform the automotive industry, let alone aviation. But Bevirt was convinced that he could revolutionize urban transportation with electric air taxis, also known as electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft (eVTOLs for short).

In a departure from many conventional aircraft manufacturers, Bevirt embraced a rapid, iterative design process that Joby refers to as “design, build, and test.” According to Jon Wagner, who spent five years as senior director of battery engineering for Tesla before joining Joby in 2017, “the original concept was that the more times you go through the process, each time you can identify improvements or problems that need to be addressed. And if you have a very good system for going through that iterative process quickly and at a low cost, then you can take risk, because if it fails, you just go again.”

With no existing supply chain for electric aircraft, Joby applied this iterative design strategy to almost every component of its eVTOL, including its all-important electric power train. Joby cycled through several generations of a geared electric motor before Wagner joined the company, leading development of a direct-drive motor with superior reliability, performance, and noise characteristics. With Joby’s aircraft now undergoing certification with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, IEEE Spectrum caught up with Wagner to learn more about the company’s power-train technology and where he expects it to go in the future.

Ryan Naru, Aviation Policy and Regulatory Affairs Lead at Joby; Matt Daus, President of IATR; Jim Neumann, Principal Owner of TrueDNA; and Peter Goldwasser, Executive Director of Together for Safer Roads

Source: IEEE Spectrum

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