but our company will continue to work on improving dispatch. one thing that we cannot do and that we do need you guys to work on is more taxicabs, and printed yearly, we need more at our company, not just more taxicabs in the city. our biggest problem is that we are routinely completely overwhelmed with the dispatch service orders to the point where we have every single taxicab and our fleet will have the mitterrand and 100 orders on the board. it is an absolutely hopeless situation. the answer is more taxicabs. we are cautiously optimistic that the board members are going to move in that direction, so if you can enjoy them on, please do. thank you. supervisor wiener: next speaker. mr. grueber. >> thank you.

i am with united taxicabs. there is one message and i would like to convey. it is that there must be improvements, not just in the quantity of taxicabs that are serving the public but in the efficiency of windows -- them serving. you can improve service by adding taxicab's of two. , and then you reach a point of diminishing returns because you are affecting the driver and, by doing that, and the more taxicab's you put on the street, more drivers have to struggle to make a living. it will impact the quality of service. it will impact the safety of services. a good steady goes back a few years now let shares there is an inverse ratio, an inverse proportion between the driver

in, and the number of accidents become a good study -- a good study goes back a few years and shows there is an inverse ratio. there is a technology that is here today. the problem is that it is now dispersed among several different applications that are now being used in san francisco, and numbers and numbers of them and are being developed across the country, and this needs to be consolidated into one system that every passenger and every cab driver and every cab in san francisco uses. this will be a tremendous help. centralized dispatch is an idea that goes back, i can trace it back to a previous the administration that had a task

force that recommended an least exploring a centralized dispatched. this goes back to to 1989 or 90. technologically, it is a snap of the thinker. taxicab companies can integrate their already computerized systems, and one company can send off to the others only those calls that they themselves cannot handle, and this will work for everybody, and the reasons we have been given, the reason why nobody is pursuing this is because nobody has pursued in the past. in other words, the power of the cap companies to block this is the very thing standing in the way of anybody taking it seriously right now. let me just say that the dispatch systems as they now currently exist unfortunately are terribly corrupt. that needs to change. no one is getting a handle on this.

and i also -- well, my time is up, so i will stop right there. bank. -- thank you. supervisor wiener: thank you. next speaker. >> it was my pleasure and honor to be a ramp cabdriver for over four years before i became a regular medallion holder. first, i want to thank christine hayashi. she has upset every single one of us, and that is a good thing, and she keeps moving forward. i cannot imagine this industry without what she has done in the past several years. i have seen many supervisors and many mayors come through here and try to sink their teeth into the taxicab industry and sort it all out. they typically have held a bunch of hearings, got overwhelmed by the minutia, the corruption, the

personalities in the industry, and then they have thrown up their hands. they have issued a whole bunch of new medallions and have then gone on to seek higher office and declared it a victory. i hope this does not happen with you folks. i hope if you seek higher office, you win, but that to fix some of the problems in the industry. none of those people who were here and have gone on ever addressed this issue of the dispatch. this idea of centralized dispatch has been years since i started in 1985, as i remember it. i have been working for two years with the only system i have worked with and have found it to be brilliant. it is now about 20% of my calls are coming from it. i have no financial interest in the company, but i get about 20 percent of my calls from it, and the customers, we looked at each other over the back seat and

say, "can you believe this?" is stand on the corner or houser they could beat talking to the cabdriver or believing in message. it is brilliant. it is the wave of the future. we need to in this direction. çhñyou can see the wonder of ths think for yourself. one other thing, charging cabdrivers' a percentage for cat -- credit-card fees is ridiculous. it sets up a situation of very customer get in and the customer gets -- we have never done that, and i hope that we never do, it

is as good as cash. we also need data. if you're going to put out more medallions, do not make it strictly a political decision like the other people before. >> bank -- supervisor mar: thank you very much. any further public comments? >> for a couple of years i worked in the hospitality industry. i saw firsthand how bad areas were with taxis. they were flabbergasted at how horrible the situation was. i am on the side for more taxis. supervisor mar: thank you very much. any further public comment? >> public comment is now closed. supervisor mar: thank you to the members of the public in the one gentleman -- i know that i'd

like to thank when i grab an issue, i do not let go until it is done. i know that mta staff is dedicated to these things as well. just a couple of issues that wanted to get a comment on one of them, and i mentioned this before, about credit cards. i noticed that there is less pushed back now than there were a few months ago. there were signs trying to discourage people, and i wondered if they were still there and if the agency was trying to transition more smoothly to the credit card system. >> in boston and new york there was initially a lot of resistance. but we have plans going forward as to the credit card issue.

i do not know to what extent i should talk about them today. but we definitely want to reduce the percentage down to something more comparable to what other merchants would pay. 5% was selected because that is what was typical in other cities. in new york is 5 percent, in boston is actually 6%. that looked normal at the time of policy, but since the franc dog act had been passed, there have been a lot of learning experiences from the ground. we will be drafting additional legislation pretty quickly here, to revise that policy.

supervisor mar: i know that the mta has given a lot of thought to structures and permits like that. personally, i am not a fan of the traditional medallion system. i think that it injects a lot of inefficiency into the system and in forces -- and present their lot of enforcement issues. putting in the middle man that can charge and make a lot of money. i am wondering what the thinking is around different structures. >> absolutely. the single operator permit was a different kind. in many ways companies have asked us to give a number of temporary permits to the company's. said they could operate the

vehicles without a medallion holder involved. yes, we are thinking about different ways for these permits, as they do not meet the traditional medallion mobled. putting medallions on the street or taxi driver in, and that kind of thing. supervisor mar: in terms of the complaint system and how it is processed, different groups will be good or bad, and i know it is something that i have dealt with regularly, people who have had bad experiences with a cab, they report it to 311 and they never hear anything. that is not unique to the cab industry. we are gradually making a lot of

those 311 issues, not really responding, they do a good job of passing along complaints someone saying that a cab driver made an inappropriate remark, or whenever, how would this process go to the mta and how would the process go? >> i would encourage everyone to use that system. we have 7000 individuals out there and it is hard for us to bring them all to a certain level of quality all at once. if we find particular issues with a vehicle or driver, we want to get that into our data. the issue of calling someone back out after a complaint is

something, as we have come in and created a new process, we have found that sometimes we would call people back and they were upset that we had called them back. saying that they had already called in -- what are you bothering me for? i already left the details. these other ones that seem the most sensitive. we are still finding our way as far as the right procedures and whether to call someone back. what does happen and, and it happens based on the number of staff and the nature of the complaint, if something is safety related, we will prioritize that.

for every complaint, we will call the driver and ask their side of the story. if there is an issue that can be resolved by the impact of the compact -- of the camera, depending on what our taxi driver tells us, we may either feel that there was something indicated. we will counsel them on their individual issue. and -- anger management, customer service, maybe you should not use that word in the front of your customers, or something like that. or we will have them come back in for a day of retraining. we want to use that to identify the problems that we can -- fix on a case by case basis. supervisor mar: i know that when

they call, they ask if we want someone to keep in touch. >> i will double check on that. we only have one person who is currently dedicated to those processes. supervisor cohen: i hope is that it would involve the big companies to small companies, but one asset covering the whole cities -- the whole city. >> it would be in for the purpose of getting into. off industry involved. -- getting the entire industry

involved. we think that it would be in the public interest of centralized dispatched, if you could find any available taxi in san francisco. supervisor cohen: pretty amazing, how it is in real time. it would be good if we could get reports of how close we are as it is developed and local government helps to develop it. supervisor cohen: i have a couple of questions. about the development of an application, are you partnered with dks, have you put it out to bid, and what exactly is the policy process will have laid out to develop this application? >> until a few weeks ago, i had

anticipated issuing an rflp. in part of the california college of arts at the end of february. supervisor cohen: there are good things that come out of them. i know that i just downloaded -- i am a taxicab user, and part of last year, i lamented the whole process of actually getting a cab. i have learned that it does not matter where you are. the west part, the east part of town, it is generally difficult to get a cab. >> the taxi drivers also want

the customers to be reliable. if they know that the customer will be there when they get there, you will find increased reliability. that is what this kind of platform offers. the customer does not go with another taxi driver and the taxi driver does not go with another customer. supervisor cohen: 1 more thing that i have experienced, almost literally being thrown out of a cab, because i tried to use my debit card by had cash, ended down very ugly, very quickly. >> use -- and it went down very ugly, very quickly. >> use 311. supervisor mar: without objection, continue to the call of the chair. is there any other business before us? >> we have no further items. supervisor mar: thank you,

everyone. we are adjourned. supervisor avalos: good morning and welcome to the public safety committee of the san francisco board of supervisors. my name is john avalos, and i am joined by christina cohen. our thought -- christina olague. our other member is not able to make it today.

supervisor olague: motion to excuse supervisor mar. supervisor avalos: we will take that without objection. we are also joined by supervisor cohen. she is most welcome to be here. the hearing is sponsored by her. could you please call item one and share with us your announcements before the -- that. >> all persons attending this meeting are requested to turn off all cell phones and pagers. if you wish to submit material for members of the committee, please submit an extra copy for the file. if you wish to submit a speakers card, please but it by the container in front of you at the real to your left.

supervisor avalos: thank you. if you could please call the first item. >> item 1, hearing to discuss public safety policies and programs implemented by state departments such as the san francisco municipal transportation agency in san francisco police department on city-wide muni lines, including the enforcement of fair collection -- fare collection. supervisor avalos: thank you. the item is brought to us by supervisor cohen, who is here. supervisor cohen: thank you for hearing this item. this past year, there were a number of violent incidents on muni, the giggling happening in district 10, one of which dealt with an officer-involved shooting of an individual who was originally stopped by a fare inspector. in the wake of this event, this incident, i have been working

with the mta and sfpd to better understand the policies and programs they have in place currently and to obviously offer a public voice. this request is in direct response to any particular the harding shooting. the request has come from the community, so i am honored to bring this to the forefront today. today, we will hear from both and the staff on this particular issue, and we also have a representative from the san francisco police department, should there be questions for them. without further ado, thank you, mr. chair. first up, we have the mta director, ed reiskin. >> good morning. very happy to be here. want to thank supervisors cohen -- supervisor cohen for her

leadership and bringing forward an issue that is very important to us. since i am here, i want to reflect on and apologize for the rush hour this morning. we had a very unfortunate occurrence where we had a private vehicle drive down into the portal that disrupted all the subway activity for this morning. the police have arrested the individual who was driving the vehicle, and i say this not just because it is timely, but because i think it is indicative of the partnership we have between the police department and the mta. the police department folks work very expeditiously and quickly to book deal with the individual but also to assess the incident to perform their investigation and work with us to get service back for the hundreds of thousands of people that we served each day in the subway.

that really is indicative of the partnership we have with the police department every day, that we are grateful for coming to the matter of the subject of today's hearing -- that we're grateful for. coming to the matter of the subject of today's hearing, the board two weeks ago for adopted a new strategic plan for the agency for the next six years, and we established four goals. the number one goal was safety. it is the strong conviction of the agency that people need to feel safe when they are riding muni. people need to feel safe if they are driving a bus, riding a train, riding a bike, driving a car. transportation needs in order for it to be effective for everyone. we deliberately made safety our number one goal, and our strategic plan, and it reflects

the value of the agency and the importance we place on public safety within the mta as a broader construct then just crime, the safety of our employees and the public in terms of collisions between vehicles or bicycles or pedestrians, but crime on muni, which i think is more the topic of this hearing, is really front and center. we certainly want people to feel safer riding anywhere in the system. we are at a good point in time, not only because we have leadership from the board and adopting safety as our primary goal, but also because we have great leadership from the police apartment. greg sur has appointed i think one of the best of the command staff of the entire police department to be the lead for the sfmta. you will hear from the commander

shortly. we have an outstanding working relationship with the police department to the commander, and what we have done is we have fought together. really a lot of our safety enforcement portfolio -- we have brought together really a lot of our safety enforcement portfolio. as well, and his traffic enforcement, fare enforcement, parking enforcement -- it is traffic enforcement. she is also assisting with traffic issues. really everything safety enforcement related brought together under her leadership, which i think is really moving the ball forward. i think you will see in her presentation or our chief officer, some of the statistics showing that some of these efforts are bearing fruit. we do have some problem areas that you will hear about as well, but i think we have very

good, focused leadership, and we have the entire executive team of the mta aligned with the goal of safety as the number one priority of supporting them and executing their tasks. we do certainly see safety has more than just enforcement. it is an education and outreach component that is very important as well. you may have seen some of the ads we have on buses and trains, encouraging people to act in a way that is less likely to make them victims of crime. we had an ad campaign that was recognized with an award by the american public transit association at its last annual meeting because of the quality and effectiveness of the campaign, but we still have work to do in terms of safety on muni. we will talk to you about some of the things we're doing both

on the enforcement side, the education site -- partnerships with others, including the school district, but i want to thank you again for holding this hearing. i have another meeting after i take any questions you have, i will chided is it that to it, but leaving you in good hands. they will all be able to walk you through what we have to present an answer any questions you might have. supervisor avalos: colleagues, questions for the general manager? ok, we will go on to the next stage. >> good morning, chairperson, supervisors. my name is reginald mason. i am director of safety, training, security, and

enforcement for the sfmta. today, i will have the commander speak to you about the partnership between our agency and the police department and how we perform enforcement on the muni system. she joined us in may of last year, and before that time, we had issues regarding how we did fare enforcement and security on the system. we met and devised a plan of using the comstat statistics to target high-crime areas. as you will see in the presentation, shall go over some of the hot spots in the way we do our saturation that you will get a better understanding and the public will get a better understanding of how we perform enforcement. i will turn it over to her, and