Eric Tracy said he started driving part time for the ride-hailing company Uber in October, which allowed him to offset lost income after a tourism industry layoff. Tracy, 57, said he can pick up $80 working two to three hours on Monday mornings and anywhere from $200 to $300 on a Friday or Saturday night.

“I love the flexibility,” he said. “I drive part time, and it allows me to make enough money to focus on building a business for myself.”

Tracy is part of a growing pool of local car owners who have embraced ride-hailing since Uber and Lyft raced into the state’s ground transportation market. While neither private company will provide driver counts, both are ramping up at a steady clip. Without a government regulatory structure in place in Hawaii, ride-hailing companies have fewer barriers to entry than traditional taxi jobs and provide easier opportunities for drivers to earn money.

Taxi companies say the lack of regulations is unfair, but ride-hailing has garnered a devoted Hawaii fan base. The technology-based model allows customers to book rides, prepay and tip on a mobile-phone app. Consumers can use GPS to track cars, and a two-way rating system helps drivers and riders learn about each other.

Representatives of ride-hailing companies are quick to point out their business model differs from that of traditional cab companies. While taxis mostly queue up at stands or roam the streets looking for fares, Uber considers itself a transportation network of companies, “which means everything is done through the app and no street hails are allowed,” said Brian Hughes, Uber Hawaii general manager. Honolulu Airport does not allow Uber to make airport pickups; however, Hughes said in destinations where they do make pickups, “Uber drivers are pinged electronically through their app, so we do not need a physical line to wait for passengers.”

Lyft spokeswoman Mary Caroline Pruitt said, “Overall, it is important to know that Lyft is different because it is a people-powered movement. The Lyft experience was designed with multiple passengers and shared rides in mind, so it would be different than a taxi or limo. Lyft was built to connect people, not cars.”

Tara Coomans, a Honolulu-based marketing consultant, said Hawaii consumers need a range of ground transportation options and ride-hailing companies should be among them.

“The reason Uber came into the Hawaii market is that their app said people were looking. I fundamentally believe that we should make business easier, not harder, in Hawaii,” said Coomans, who started riding Uber in San Francisco about five years ago. “I sincerely hope ride-sharing companies are allowed to operate here. It’s shortsighted to limit innovation and business models that work for us.”

However, critics say one of the main differences between traditional taxis and the new models is that Uber and Lyft lack government regulation in Hawaii, creating an uncertain and even unsafe environment for customers.

Last session some lawmakers said the state Public Utilities Commission, which regulates passenger vehicles like limos, tour buses and shuttles, should oversee ride-hailing. Others said the counties, which regulate metered taxis, were more appropriate. A few favored deregulation of all ground transportation.

Uber initially supported a bill to establish a regulatory framework for ride-hailing under the PUC. But in the end Uber pulled its support for the legislation, which it said would not work with the company’s cost-structure.

“Essentially Uber is saying, ‘You are driving us out of here,’” said state Sen. Tom Brower, chairman of the House tourism committee. “But really, they just don’t want to play by the rules. Traditional cabs are more invested in the community and more likely to stay through the challenges. That said, I think we need new sets of rules all around.”

Getting to that point may be difficult, though. The PUC wants counties to oversee these new transportation models.

Giving authority for ride-hailing to the counties is a move the traditional taxi industry favors, too. The argument is that the counties already have a framework since they regulate taxis. But Honolulu city officials aren’t convinced that its Customer Services Department should assume regulatory responsibility for ride-hailing, either.

“We are having some research conducted. Different jurisdictions have used different methods,” said Georgette Deemer, the city’s deputy managing director. “We are as yet undecided.”

Brower said that, in the interim, the system is favoring ride-hailing at the expense of taxis.

“Last session, the Legislature wanted to be better safe than sorry. When you are on the side of change and the new economy, it just sounds good,” Brower said. “But now we need to bring parity to the industry by establishing similar regulations for Uber and Lyft or deregulating everything. For the record, I favor new rules.”

Dave Sutton, spokesman for Who’s Driving You, an initiative of the national nonprofit Taxicab, Limousine & Paratransit Association, said deregulation shouldn’t be on the table.

“Our association is advocating ride-hailing regulations that follow taxi industry best practices,” he said. “In the 1970s and ’80s taxis were deregulated in many American cities, and it turned into a disaster. … All kinds of bad things happened. Lawmakers fielded so many complaints that they moved to make sure that the industry was regulated again.”