Vancouver's chronic cab shortage at the night-time peak hours has one city councillor wondering if it's time for the city to get into the taxi business.

City Councillor Geoff Meggs says getting the city of Vancouver its own taxi licences might be one way to make the Granville entertainment district safer and sidestep restrictive provincial rules.

"(Partiers) are often unruly, there's a rush for cabs," he said. "It's been pretty chaotic and it's been frustrating for the police."

Right now, provincial taxi licences are issued as a whole: a taxi is on the road 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That can mean it doesn't make enough money during the off-peak times, and can't meet demand during the peak times.

In Meggs' hypothetical system, the city would hold taxi licences, and allow them to be driven only during peak hours. That might help the rush and stop drunks from flinging themselves into the street to flag cabs down.

"The advantage is that the city could keep the value of a taxi licence, but tone down the service if there are too many cabs on the road," he said.

Amrik Mahil of the Association of Pacific Taxi Owners told CTV News he sees the same problem: too many taxis during the day, and not enough at night. He said he would support Meggs' proposal and he is working on one of his own.

Mahil said he is looking for a break from ICBC so it makes financial sense to park a taxi during the day and run it only at night.

"At night we can't be as efficient as we usually are," he said. "We are working on it, we're being proactive."

In order to get a taxi licence, a would-be driver has to apply to the provincial Passenger Transportation Board and demonstrate a need for the service.

While the board admits there's a need at night, chair Dennis Day says all of the applicants since 2007 couldn't demonstrate a need for the service during the day.

Day said that while it is possible to get a night-only licence, no one has applied for it because it's expensive to operate a cab and companies need the 24-hour revenue.

"It's very difficult to make a business case to invest in a taxi for 12 hours a week," said Day. "Nobody has come forward with an application. If they do, we'll look at it."

The city has also looked at other ways to drain the entertainment district of partiers after 3 a.m. One of them has been to add a taxi stand at Nelson and Seymour.

In an e-mail, Vancouver Police Department Const. Jana McGuinness told CTV News that taxi lineups have always been a problem.

"We can make recommendations as to service levels but ultimately the decision to put more cabs on the street doesn't rest with us," she said.

The City of Toronto dealt with its cab shortage by flooding the market with 1,400 owner-operator cab licences.

"It caused a sensation," said Richard Mucha, manager of licensing in Toronto. "The citizens of Toronto were pleased that there was a sweeping reform of the industry."

The ambassador licences, as they were called, were not permanent licences and had no value, which encouraged people to get into the business without spending hundreds of thousands on a new licence.

He said Toronto hasn't received complaints about cab service during peak periods, partly as a result of greater licence numbers.

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Jon Woodward