In today’s rapidly changing urban environment, transportation must be safe and reliable. It is more than a convenience; it is essential for public well-being. In Edmonton, community forums, women’s advocacy groups and accessibility organizations raised growing concerns about safety, service quality and inclusivity in the vehicle-for-hire industry (including taxis and ride-share services like Uber and Lyft). These collective voices brought to light significant shortcomings in the system and called for immediate action from the city administration.
To address these concerns, the city passed a bylaw mandating formal driver training for the vehicle-for-hire industry. However, passing regulation is only one part of the solution. Translating it into something meaningful, something that changes behavior, addresses community concerns and brings value to the industry requires an entirely different approach. This is where NorQuest College stepped in.
NorQuest College is Alberta’s largest community college, known for its deep commitment to workforce development and inclusion. NorQuest College’s Continuing Education Division is designed to be agile, community-responsive and outcome-driven, making it a natural fit to develop the city’s mandated vehicle-for-hire driver training. However, the task at hand was not merely about developing a course. It was about designing an intervention that could shift attitudes, raise standards and bridge the gap between regulation, industry operations and public expectations.
The roots of this project trace back over a decade to NorQuest’s Taxi Ambassador Program, originally developed for Edmonton International Airport. That training focused on customer service, safe driving and language support—themes now echoed in the citywide vehicle-for-hire training mandate. The success of that earlier program, which led to a significant reduction in complaints, positioned NorQuest as a proven and credible partner. This initiative was not a simple curriculum project; it was a systemwide change effort.
NorQuest began by conducting a jurisdictional scan and reviewing existing training models. The team then collaborated with stakeholders to establish learning outcomes that reflected both the city’s regulatory themes—accessibility, safety, customer service and navigation—and the community’s lived experiences. This work culminated in a modular, five-hour curriculum available in multiple formats: in-person, online synchronous and asynchronous. By offering flexible delivery, NorQuest ensured the training could meet the needs of a varied driver population.
What made the project unique was not just the curriculum itself but the process behind it. NorQuest mobilized internal expertise across its applied research faculty, the Colbourne Institute for Inclusive Leadership and the Workplace Accessibility and Inclusion Centre. These teams ensured the training was evidence-informed, equity-centered and rooted in adult learning best practices. This depth of research and collaboration gave the curriculum both credibility and depth—qualities essential to creating lasting change.
However, even with thoughtful design and rigorous research, the project faced considerable stakeholder resistance. Many in the vehicle-for-hire industry saw the training as an unnecessary burden. Concerns about cost, complexity and disruption were real. NorQuest chose to address them not with persuasion alone but with partnership. Through codesign, transparent communication and by listening carefully to concerns, the college built trust with industry representatives. In turn, elements of the curriculum were adapted to ensure ease of use and relevance without compromising on quality or the city’s goals.
On the city’s side, the deliverables included not only the curriculum but a robust implementation plan. This roadmap guided the City of Edmonton on how to roll out the training, monitor completion, and support industry compliance. For the vehicle-for-hire industry, NorQuest ensured the learning experience was accessible, nondisruptive and technologically compatible with common learning management systems. The result was a program that served the sector’s regulatory intent and its operational reality.
What emerged from this work is not just a training module but a blueprint for how postsecondary institutions can serve as agents of civic impact. The Vehicle-for-Hire Driver Training Program represents a clear example of how research-informed, community-focused curriculum development can become a policy tool, aligning regulatory mandates with community needs and operational feasibility.
The project had many challenges—balancing stakeholder demands, managing a complex array of deliverables and embedding inclusion and accessibility into every layer of the work required significant effort—but the answer to whether it was worth it is clear. This project reaffirmed NorQuest’s role not simply as an education provider but as a changemaker, an institution that brings research, community insight and practical training together to solve real problems.
The story of this training program is at its core about what can happen when education moves beyond the classroom. When we design it with intention and inform it with research, a curriculum becomes more than content. It becomes a catalyst. And in the case of Edmonton’s vehicle-for-hire training, it became a bridge between regulation and real-world change.
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