NSW Taxi Council
Jun 7, 20222 min
Did you know taxi and hire vehicle (including rideshare) drivers have a legal obligation to accept passengers who are travelling with an assistance animal?
An assistance animal in NSW is a dog or other animal that is specifically trained to assist a person with a disability. These assistance animals are not pets, they are trained animals and are required to meet a high standard of hygiene and behaviour.
People travelling with an assistance animal rely on their assistance animal for help every day, and they also rely on taxi, hire vehicles, and rideshare drivers to get them where they need to go.
The Point to Point Transport Commissioner provides an Assistance Animal Toolkit, which contains a range of user-friendly and easily shared resources to help service providers and drivers understand their legal obligations and role to supporting people travelling with a disability.
Any driver who is providing passenger services in a taxi or hire vehicle (including rideshare) cannot refuse to transport a passenger with an assistance animal or an assistance animal in training.
The resources in this toolkit have been developed to help taxi service providers, affiliated providers and booking service providers inform and remind drivers of their legal obligations when providing passenger services to people travelling with an assistance animal.
The Toolkit contains Fact sheet, posters, Social media messages and key communication messages.
The 'Assistance Animals in the Point to Point Transport Industry' video was launched at the NSW Taxi Industry State Conference 2022 by Nick Abrahim - Deputy CEO, NSW Taxi Council.
We would like to thank the many stakeholders across the industry, including the members of the Disability Reference Group (DRG) and the Point to Point Transport Commission for their contribution to the development of the video and toolkit.