Have you had troubles hailing a cab? A city committee will be debating a recommendation to add more taxi licences which will hopefully make it easier to catch a ride in Calgary.

The committee will discuss the need for 60 new licences and examine recommendations from bureaucrats and the taxi and limousine advisory committee.

The proposal includes licences for 47 regular plates and 13 for accessible vehicles.

The new licences would be able to work at any time, but would be required to be available Fridays and Saturdays, between 4 p.m. and 4 a.m.

Some drivers say that the new licences won't help the situation. They're also worried that more drivers on the road will lead to more competition and less money for them.

The committee is also discussing the possibility of dispatch issues.

They say that customers aren't having trouble getting a cab, it's getting through to dispatch.

Kurt Enders, president of Checker Yellow Cabs, says that volume is an issue. "It's a consumer issue. We do approximately 15 to 18,000 road trips a month where we send a driver to pick a person up and they're not there. The driver gets two or three 'no trips' in a row, they lose faith in the dispatch system so they go somewhere to go flag. The easiest place to go flag is downtown so the people at a residential party struggle to get a taxi."

Jonathan Denis, Alberta’s Minister of Justice, said last year that he’s disappointed with Calgary’s approach to the taxi situation.

He thinks that the city should put more cabs on the street in an attempt to combat impair driving and create more jobs.

“There have been calls in the taxi industry for upwards of 300 new licences,” says Denis. “Whether or not that is enough, I don't know. What I do know is the city should look at what some other cities have done and establish a fixed ratio. If the city increases by a certain number of people each year, there going to add a certain number of taxi licences.”

The city currently has 1,466 licenced taxis.

The recommendations, if approved at committee, will go forward to council for next week.