Blue Line Taxi

I recently had an excellent experience with Blueline, and am very grateful for the professionalism and helpfulness of its drivers. I dropped my set of keys in the cab, and when the driver found them at the end of the day, he took the time to track me down via a key tag on my set of keys, and dropped them off at a vendor we use. I already had a positive experience due to the promptness of the driver’s arrival and his courteousness during the trip, but this act of helpfulness has made me a loyal Blueline customer.

I usually use blue line for my business travel needs. I called another company once, after 1h of wait, i called blue line and they picked me up within 8 minutes. I have never had issues.

Having lived in Ottawa for so long, I can say this taxi line is not good and should be avoided. If you have never traveled to Ottawa before I will update you with what has been going on with this taxi company. They have been at war with the popular ride sharing app «UBER» over unfair licensing. They’ve made protests and have threatened drivers and passengers of UBER verbally and some have turned violent. Drivers in this company are very rude and drive like maniacs. But that’s not to say they’re all bad, they do have a lot of nice drivers. I’ve been cut off by these taxi drivers before. Find another way of transport.
Things to keep in mind (to sum it up)
UBER is illegal in Ottawa
Blue line Taxi drivers are most of the time rude, cabs are not clean!
Follow the links below and form your own opinion

Cheers, play it smart.
Update: The way Über is being viewed in Ottawa is changing. City hall is looking at allowing Über to operate in Ottawa legally. Don’t be afraid to use über in Ottawa. It’s a great service and I use it all the time.

Thought I’d written a review before for Blueline, but I guess I hadn’t. It doesn’t surprise me to see such poor ratings for this taxi company long before Über was even a thing.
I’ve taken a Blueline cab out of necessity maybe 15 – 20 times in Ottawa over the past five years. Out of all of the drivers I’ve had, maybe three or four were good or great, while the others were alright, bad, or awful.
These awful ones were not necessarily awful because they were bad drivers per se, but for reasons like pulling sneaky tricks to hike the meter or making wildly inappropriate comments to myself or another passenger. Clearly their training glosses over what is and what is not appropriate humour and what you really shouldn’t say to strangers when they’re in a vulnerable position (namely the backseat of a stranger’s vehicle).
Every complaint against Blueline is fruitless: a mere drop in the sea of complaints against the company, none of which it actually acknowledges.

I have no issue with the drivers. But the dispatcher? Omg. So rude. You can hear how much she hates her job. With her snobby mono tone greeting «blue line taxi. What do you want» followed by me asking for a cab. She then sighs and Rudley says «name and address» that’s it. So I tell her and followed by «k it’s in its way» and hung up.
Such a snob. I hate that I had to use this service because of how rude she is.
The drivers are always nice. Non issues with them. They make small talk and play music for you. No probs. but they really need to have dispatchers who can speak with a smile in their voice.

The worst cab experience twice within as many days. First time the driver was so erratic I thought I was going to throw up when we finally made it to our hotel. Next was just moments ago when our fare was $ 7.45 and when I gave the driver $ 20 he only gave me back $ 10. I always tip but I like to decide and not normally 30+%. Two strikes and you are out for me!

Good luck if they ever show up. After a 5 minute wait turned to 45 mins, I called a different company

Because of their oligopolistic status in the market, I’ve been taking bluelines for over a decade. Yes, there are a couple of other taxi companies in Ottawa but 80 percent of the vehicles on the road belong to blueline and the other guys are just harder to find.
The one star is not a rating of the cab experience once you get in the vehicle. Like cabs throughout North America, you get better drivers and worse drivers. It’s just luck of the draw. They do their job and get you there, more or less intact. You do your job by paying the fare and not throwing up in the vehicle ($ 50 fee if you do, so the card says…) In fact, Ottawa bluelines, in my opinion, tend to be slightly cleaner and slightly newer than most cabs in Toronto or Washington. My one star rating is because of the derisive and disdainful attitude of the dispatchers.
Blueline is one of the few businesses where you hope you get the robotic operator when you call because at least there is a chance of a friendly voice. Somehow, the live dispatcher always makes you feel like an idiot for calling a cab when it is too early, too late, too cold, too hot, too dark or too light out. Heaven help you if you are standing in front of your house, watching fleets of cabs drive by 15 minutes after you called for a taxi, and you call the dispatcher back just to make sure they got the right address. Instead of some gentle reassurance that your car is on the way, you are more likely to be get snapped at and told «It’s only been 14 minutes, not 15 minutes…»
More and more people I know are going with the ‘entrepreneur’ option of taking a business card from a driver and calling him up directly when they need a lift. Yeah, it’s not the «right thing to do» but neither is treating your customers like pond scum.

Blue line is a hit a miss. The driver can either make the ride bearable, or make it miserable.
Called for a cab around 8:00pm, the driver was on his blue-​tooth arguing during the whole 5 minute ride. It was awkward.
The ride home at 3:00am was different, the driver was fantastic, sent my cell phone an automated message to let me know that the taxi would be arriving within 1 minute and 30 seconds. The driver explained that those messages are sent out to customers during the winter, especially during rainy or icy conditions. This driver was friendly, and chatty, and made the ride comfortable.
Both cabs that I took that evening arrived within minutes after calling, which is fantastic!
Overall, you never know what kind of personality your driver will have when you call Blue Line, but the cabs are quick, and the seats are comfortable.

Unreliable, no courtesy to keep the customer updated. Had me waiting for an hour… and I’m still waiting!!! Called four times and all those times, I’ve been hearing that it will be here shortly! Got me all pissed!!!

Company is wildly inconsistent as one other reviewer said. Have had plenty of perfectly fine trips, but in the past couple of weeks I’ve had really terrible drivers. One made us stop and get cash from a Mac’s after he left his credit machine at home, he also drove 145−150kph down the Queensway. Today I had one demand I cancel my cab after I got into it, even though I said no. He kept pestering me the entire way to the destination.
Basically, not a bad company, but some of the drivers are completely messed up.

Not great. Not even good. Just OK.
I’ve gotten some friendly drivers, but they’re pretty much a rarity with Blueline; the majority of the drivers seem, as others have said, to be chatting away on the phone, at first making it hard for you to know whether they’re addressing you or not. That is, until you ask, «Pardon?» when they impatiently explain to you they’re on the phone.
I live in Ottawa South, and it can cost $ 13 – 18 to get downtown, depending on the driver.

I think I’ll update every time I ride Blue Line just to be fair to them. I called at 3pm for a 4pm cab in the market were there are a ton of cabs.
My cab arrives late. I’m going to just copy and paste my snippet of my Beck’s Taxi review:
«Vastly different from my Ottawa cab ride yesterday were the driver popped the trunk and sat in the car for me to put my bags in. When I saw\t down he immediately dialed someone on his cell and talked at a tone in which if I was on the phone I’m sure he’d given me crap or asked me to stop and talked the whole ride to my destination. Popped the trunk at my destination and sat there. You suck blue line.»

Blue Line is OK. There is nothing spectacular about it, everything’s pretty average, from it’s vehicles to service to rates. They’re all over, so it’s fairly easy to hail one down or to just call for one, though they don’t always come when they say they will. With about $ 40 in your pocket, you can generally get from one end of the city to the other, so it’s not too expensive.
The main factor that will determine your taxi experience is the driver. Some know the streets far better than others, most will help you with your luggage, and you have half that will talk to you and half that won’t. There’s a huge difference between friendliness and impropriety, though. Some drivers are very sweet and professional, while I’ve caught others trying to look up my skirt. There are also ones that will talk on the phone while they drive you, making it harder if you need to give special instructions about where you’re going.

I hopped in a Blueline cab last week near Slater Street (downtown) and asked for «the train station». We started down Elgin Street and then got on the 417 and much to my surprise we started heading WEST.
I asked what the driver was doing and he said he was taking me to the train station — the Barrhaven train station. After a muttering of «WTF?» by me I explained that I wanted the main train station. The one that had been around for years and is frequented by most people and not the new train station (pretty much a small stop to service people who live in a suburb of Ottawa) located well out of the downtown.
The driver got turned around and didn’t seem too phased by my anger that I was already running late.
I often find that the drivers don’t know where they’re going. I know it’s our right as a passenger to suggest the route we take in getting to our location but I really thought this one was a no-​brainer.
For the most part their drivers are pleasant and sometimes quite friendly. If you ever have a problem with them just contact Blueline by email (don’t phone them) and you’ll probably get a quick response.
If Blueline is the only taxi that shows up I’ll take it but I have gone out of my way to grab cabs from the other companies, especially West-​Way.

I was sold the moment he got out of the car to load our two rolley bags. Wow. Sure wish Vancouver taxis worked this way!

I’ve rarely had problems with Blue Line Taxi before. The drivers are often knowledgeable of the city and they don’t try to «take you for a ride» in order to milk more money from you. The drivers are rarely talkative, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing for some people. Their prices are fair (heh), as they seem to be approximately the same as other cab companies in the city.
Actually, I have a particularly good story about Blue Line that involved my roommate a couple weeks ago. She left her card holder, complete with credit card, in the back of his cab, went out to eat with her friends and didn’t notice until much later. When she got back home, she called Blue Line to report her missing cards. She almost instantly got a response from her driver. He told her he remembered her because of her beautiful smile and he actually volunteered to deliver her cards to her home. This was a pretty happy ending in circumstances that would have normally gone sour.
My personal bad story about Blue Line is something I don’t enjoy that they seem to do the most out of any cab company. If I’m walking alone at night, especially with no one around, they often slow down and kinda stalk me down the road for awhile. This actually happens quite often and my friend has experienced the same thing. Best case scenario: they’re trying to tempt us to take a cab instead of walk. However, doing this to a girl alone at night only ends up freaking her out and it’s never appreciated.