weights and measures so look at that more closely but we -- it goes into delineation and deficiencies of this time and space of travel. we should look into that because there's lots of conditions here in san francisco for traffic and construction. >> next speaker. >> mark gruberg. >> thank you, mark gruberg, i'm speaking here for myself, not for any cab company or taxi organization. i'm very much in support of an eta system. i think some of us, you know, have been crying in the wilderness for many years for not even a centralized dispatch system per se but just an integrated system so that if you call a company and they couldn't provide you with a cab and there was another company that could and you were willing to take it you could get that cab and that has never happened because cab companies have blocked it down the line.

now we have a system that doesn't even require company participation, it's a combination between the prospective passenger and the driver. i think companies have a role in this but i don't think that they are the prime actors in this. and there's just too many balkanization. one is availability and the other is the efficiency of delivering that service and that's where things have fallen down. the ability to get a cab, any cab in the city potentially through a taxi app is essential, an essential tool now in terms of competition. but i do have to say that i do have problems with this

contract and it has to do with the extent and the scope of the information that would be collected and gathered by the government, you know, very, very detailed information on every taxi ride, every tax trip, every taxi shift, and i just think that this information is not something that should be residing in government hands but can be gotten from cab companies for the purposes that it's needed. thank you. >> mariana fotio >> thank you for pronouncing my name correctly. forgive me. actually i'm an independent cab driver for over 20 years. and everything i heard actually i am surprised. you consider philly, look at what happened, you don't have to hear anybody, just look at the city. it's a

total mess. and they are trying to fix it. we actually ask them to fix it. now, for this specific application is well needed. we have competition that is illegal, we are fighting other applications that are organized and they are really taking our business, people do use the smart phone. we are not servicing the city, i don't care what anybody says, we are not servicing the city correctly. i don't know where the passenger is. passenger does not know where the cab is. and if everything works so fantastic before, why then uber is there, why everybody else is there? they wouldn't be there if the system was not broken. so we do have to fix it. this application, you know, i hear all these arguments about the

privacy put it back into our hands, into the hands of the cab drivers, by all means go for it p we have to do it, we have to fix it. really the service is substandard and this will make a huge headway. thank you. >> rashid alatrak >> my name is rashid alatrak, i have been driving for san francisco for 15 years. i support the application to mta that is failure by cab company for dispatch is a game by the big cab company. one is uber is illegal, lift is illegal, side

car is illegal, you have china cab is also illegal, anderson illegal, fly wheel illegal, it approved failure of dispatch by largest company in san francisco. what they need, they need to complain, the driver, they are on the list of the mfa, they going to complain to the mta, they going to push them to add like new medallion and who is going to hit the number, the company that collect $86,000 a year from the driver and they pay the driver like some money and the problem is the failure of dispatch and is also uber cab company, a violation of license, transportation violation of public utility commission, violation of no license with

mta, violation of dispatch, it is also -- listen to me please -- also there is now two meter in the cab, one is allowed by san francisco weight and measures and mta, the other one is not, belongs to uber, who is uber, who is uber technology. they don't have license, how do they operate. all of them from uber technology, the game is cash money and all over they are going to put us out of business. >> nor aiesa >> good evening, my name is nor aiesa, i have been a driver for about 35 years, i have experienced up cycles and down cycles. this cycle i must be honest it's one of the worst i

have experienced and yet i have not seen the market end of the tunnel. but i still strongly believe that we can do things to fix it. it's fixable, we still can save it. however, we all have to compromise a little bit and i use the word compromise, not sacrifice, it's not there yet but we have to do something about it. i would be willing to discuss all the small details in this regard but it can't be done possibly now, i don't have the time. however, i am supportive of this new agreement, it could do no harm, it could only do something good for the industry. we are all in it together, we have huge competitor outside here and we already have to compete with them on the technological level and central dispatch is the way to go to give better service to the community. i heard all the speakers

before me, none of them had responded to the opening statement of the gentleman from service sometimes somebody across town could take them 45 minutes to get to where the customer is while there is somebody half a block away. central dispatch is the only way to go to get out of this hole we are in. a little compromise from all of us will do a great deal. >> mission creek gone wild comes into play here and i'm thinking of joseph conrad's heart of darkness, last words

of kurtz, the greed, the greed. our fees have gone up exponentially and now $6 million more and it's going to talk from us. they can talk about $800 billion dollars in the bank account, but i don't believe it, it's going to come from us taxi drivers and it's another regulation and i'm opposing it because we're not, the government's regulatory authority is to regulate, not compete with businesses that already exist and that's exactly what they are doing here. it's they say a bridge too far in the military. i don't want my privacy invaded to the extent it clearly does. it's way too intrusive. if you want to make us employees, make us employees, give us some benefits, instead of booting us out when we become disabled did

$160,000 before capital gains and that's what's happening. i mean it's just the full employment act, they are going to have to get an in person in there too for $200,000 a year, we're going to be paying them. somebody has too keep it from being hacked, this will have information from citizens here, every address, people who can afford a cab they are going to be marketed and solicited for votes because they are confident voters and they probably do vote. there's a power structure that's interested and a monetary structure that's interested and you are not going to be able to keep the money away from them and the information away from them. >> walid followed by berry toronto. >> my name is walid, i'm here to support this measure. actually we need it for so long. if you deserve it, all

cab drivers you will be in support of this. the only reason that you find over in the street because there is no centralized dispatch system. people need service and the only way that you could provide service is with this app, thank you. >> next speaker. >> berry toronto, followed by carl mcmurdo >> carl mcmurdo followed by ed healy. >> thank you, regarding the proposed fti contract, there seems to be a hardware component involved which i believe per the san francisco administrative code would require a competitive bidding process. also the data gathering particular seem to duplicate existing requirements, as you know. i do support the electronic taxi access component in the contract. the so-called

transportation companies such as uber have captured a lot of our market. in the streets sometimes i see people outside of clubs and they are looking at their smart phones watching the vehicle they have ordered from the tnz approach while their taxi is sitting there hoping to get rides and i've interviewed these people and asked them do you really hate the taxi drivers or what's going on? and the answer i get is that these individuals want to support the people who are able to efficiently pick them up at their residences so they call them for the return trip and the people say to me, well, if you taxi drivers had apps we would take you. given that almost all the cabs have either fly wheel or taxi magic right now, there seems to be a publicity problem. the city residents don't know that the companies have apps so whether you approve this

contract or do it some other way, i think you need to spend some money on the publicity. also i think all of you do understand that the majority of service calls will still take place by regular phones and cell phones and the app system requires a credit card information on file, a $1 charge and maybe a $7 no go fee or something like that, so also we need to restrict in our industry and maybe you could publicize to people that we need applicants to drive cabs and even subsidize their start-up costs. thank you very much. >> ed healy followed by david smut. >> hi, i'm just probably driving my last shift for desoto listening to the cab companies talk here you'd think this was just wonderful cab service all over the city. basically people

can't get a taxi in half the city. the reason that the -- i'm thinking of a different word -- the nnc's have taken over is because they are actually fulfilling a service. charles rathbone wants it keep all his little calls, well, that's really nice but what we need here is one app, i don't care whether it's fly wheel or -- although that's a very good app, or taxi magic or whatever, you need to be able to see all these cabs on one platform just like they do on uber or anything else. if you do have them on this app you would be able to, you would be able to wipe most of these companies -- uber is going to be around, but you could wipe the other two out if these people want to run this in a rational manner. i'd like to remind you that

the cab companies were against open taxi access 2 or 3 years ago, killed it in some way or another, had that gone through 2 or 3 years ago, we had the app2 or 3 years ago, the tnc's would not have made nearly the impact they have now. i think this is a necessary thing to do, i don't know about the technical problems could perhaps be work i had out in a better way. as for being spied on, the nsa does it, google does it, why not you? i'm all for it. >> david smut, madeline savot >> david smith, i apologize for the sloppy writing. good afternoon, commissioners, i will say traditionally i've been for a centralized dispatch for a very long time but these days i am not. mostly because

centralized dispatch is essentially here in the form of fly wheel and taxi magic. we also have desoto and luxor coming out with their own apps. the public is already used to using these apps and the market has shifted in this direction whether we like it or not, so we're better off not disrupting it because it is keeping people in taxis and bringing new people into the taxi industry. it's normal for a driver now to have his dispatch from his company as well as their fly wheel app or the other app that we will not mention because i'm against it, of course, and i see why the companies don't want this, i don't blame them in any way shape or form. i would prefer personally that you use this money to enforce, for enforcement against rogue limousines and taxis at the ballpark and hotels and at

nightclubs where limo vultures are aggressive to both drivers and passengers. we need signs at the golden gate bridge letting them know what numbers they can call so they are not stranded in the cold. it's not right that tourists don't have not even one phone number at the golden gate bridge, the biggest land mark maybe in the country as well as inside golden gate park at the museums, we need more taxi stands at fisherman's wharf, we need to fix the u-turn at the caltrans station, better driving training, this is what the money needs to go to. >> madeline savot >> yeah, i can't speak to the particular platform that's been chosen, i would only hope in consideration of it due diligence has been done. i would also like to add i would like for reasons of equity that it be accessible not only by

smart phones but also land lines and computer as well. yeah, as somebody who is actually visited and lived in cities where there is a unified taxi calling service that worked seamlessly i would like to encourage san francisco and all the taxi drivers present and not for us to move forward and have this kind of service and to consider in fact that their cost savings may be huge in terms of fuel savings in future because there would be much less time wasted roving around looking for clients. i'd like to say it's very disheartening as well as somebody who has been turned down by taxi drivers for no apparent reason to see them squabbling over their piece of the pie and see us moving forward into the world class city that we say we are. >> thank you, miss savot, next speaker. >> some things that i was

considering as i read this and there has been some concerns voiced that this is hardware because this is a no bid contract. i think you really need to determine is this hardware or software or if it's, i believe if it's hardware it has to go out to bid. will the terms of this contract, will it move this body beyond your regulatory duties into operational duties? as we look into the future, will this contract pay for itself in reduced staff time and you need to look at the possible cost overruns as one expert just advised you. is it going to be more than six million? what is fti's track record, has this contractor ever built or installed an app like this? they are saying no. important to me as a the driver, how am i going to be paid for my services and i'm told that hasn't been determined yet, the details will be wrorked out.

another thing is the star rating system. will that lead to discriminatory practices for the customers and the driver? could they possibly have you willary 84 motives, will data be collected about passengers in order to sell them products, we're looking into the future like facebook and twitter. how long will it take to come into being, i've been told one year, and as i look at it, i'm really in support of the centralized dispatch but there's so much other stuff in it. i wonder will this really help us compete against these other guys or is this some kind of trojan horse that's going to lead us to be spied upon? i keep thinking of the patriot act after 9-11 when the government started spying on citizens. i'm not doing anything wrong so why do i

care. i feel like i've been duped a little bit and i'm a victim of bait and switch. i have the feeling it's bait and switch. >> yellow cab has been at the forefront of introducing technological innovations into the cab industry for those 37 years. we were among other things the first cab company in the united states to introduce credit card processing within the cabs 15 years ago. i just want to share some numbers with you in october, i just looked at the statistics this morning. in october, 600,000 people rode in the yellow cab fleet. six hundred thousand, approximately. of these, 180,000 called us in some way by telephone, by app,

by web app. unfortunately of these 180,000, only 70 percent got a cab. you could figure out why. you should know why. it's simply a matter of capacity. i don't care how good you are going to improve the technology to lick people with cabs, if you don't have the cabs to provide the service, it's not going to work. thank you very much. >> thank you, next speaker. >> jim margolis and then larry corngold, the last speaker. >> jim margolis, i'm a medallion holder, i've been with the yellow cab co-op since it began. i can see both sides of this. i think we do have a problem fighting some of these other companies that provide the innovation, they talk about innovation, the ubers of the world. they have no

innovation, their innovation is they are trying to operate vehicles without insurance or adequate insurance. that's an innovation i think they should be ashamed of. but i understand this body does not regulate them so there's really not that much you can do. i want to see people being able to be picked up by taxicabs and i know that yellow cab and most of the other cabs because of the regulation have decent vehicles, have hybrid vehicles, have better vehicles than these other companies do in terms of environmental factors. i think a problem, and i've been away from this a little bit, is this publicity. i don't think people know who have the smart phones or whatever, you know, they hear about uber, it's cool and this and that, i don't think people know about the other alternatives. some people do. let's get some advertising out there whether in cooperation with the companies or something on even the television or radio or spots or something like that so

it's in people's brain, oh, yeah, this is available, i have an alternative. i do agree with what nate drury said about not everybody uses the smart phones and there's people out there. people out in saint francis woods where they can't get a cab because cars, they need to have access to that but they should know that it's not all about uber charges too much or this company that charges but they don't have adequate insurance, they get in an accident, they have to know about the alternatives. they want to use a taxicab, get them a taxi where they can push a button. >> thank you, mr. margolis >> last speaker, berry corngold. >> hi, berry corngold, i'm with the san francisco cab driver's association. we're kind of in a quandry about this. we definitely need to have all the cabs being able to

be seen on one screen and if this is the only way to do it, then i guess we would support this. but i've also questioned the amount of information that's being collected with this stuff, if that's necessary and i'm also questioning how these apps like fly wheel, which has been very successful, they have over 1100 cabs on their system, i use it, i live out in the sunset, very good service out in the sun set, it's never more than 3 or 4 minutes to get a cab when i've used it, i'm wondering how these companies are going to compete and we haven't been informed all about that so these are my concerns. i can't weigh in real strongly one way or another on this because of these reservations. i will say that it's very irritating to see all these other cabs, these other taxicabs with pink mustaches or whatever or side car socks that are not being regulated whatsoever and now you guys

want to control, see how fast we're going and take every little bit of information, fine, do the same thing for those guys. their taxicabs are nothing else and you should be standing up to the cpuc about this because taxicabs are supposed to be regulated by cities. it's not what you call them, if they are providing taxicab service, which is what they are doing, they should be under your jurisdiction and regulation and you need to do something about it. do some advertising, maybe quit advertising for uber x on the busses and put advertising for services that dispatch legal taxicabs. okay, thanks. >> thank you, mr. cornberg. >> a second comment? >> no, i'm sorry, we can only have one public comment for speaker in the time period, otherwise it wouldn't be fair. i'm sorry. >> (inaudible). >> no, thank you, i'm sorry, we can only have one public

comment per speaker. thank you. >> the chairman had said we were going to postpone consideration of the item until after closed session. >> yes. >> would you like to move on to item 14? >> authorizing the director of transportation to execute an agreement and authorizing $9 million, madam chairman you have one person who indicated an interest in addressing you. >> do you want to explain this one or go right to public comment? >> i hope the staff report was fairly self-explanatory. we don't talk about it often but everybody in the taxi industry knows that the airport is an important part of the taxi ecosystem here in san francisco. the airport is upgrading their systems and this is essentially an mou that

would authorize us to pay a share of that upgrade because of the value that we will get for it as the city's taxi regulator. >> shall we hear public comment? ?oo ?a mark gruberg is the only person who's turned in a speaker card on this matter. >> thank you again. i'll be brief. >> i'm sorry, one second, mr. gruberg, did you have a question? >> i had a procedural question, we just had a lengthy public session and i understand we need to have a closed session to talk about litigation but i suspect there's a fair number of people here, i'm confused when we're going to have the discussion about the earlier item and i suspect a lot of people who came for the earlier item would like some clarification, as i would. >> the chairman indicate before he left wreer we are to have one closed session or two.

>> one closed session. >> i'm sorry, mr. gruberg, go ahead. >> in that case i'll be really brief. i think coordination between these two regulatory systems is great but my one concern again goes back to the amount of information, the kind of information, extent of information, and without any restrictions or restraints on the use of that information that would be coming forth from the previous item if it is approved. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker or is that the only speaker. >> han sue kim, charles rathbone, last speaker, ed healy. >> i'll be brief as well. i have to tell you, the san francisco airport has always been very supportive of the taxi industry especially of these new ride services that

are coming here. i do want to talk about when we spend money from the sfmta this is an opportunity for me to say with the new medallion sale system and the revenues generated from the taxi industry, there must at some time be some investment back into the industry not just going forward with different types of subsidies or agreements into new programs but i ask you to really redirect some resources back to the industry as you mentioned about pr, driver training, there's so much that can be done with very little and with the medallion sales and income as they are, i really hope you would look at that as you go forward with new contracts and put money toward these things. >> thank you, mr. kim, next speaker. >> charles rathbone, followed by ed healy. >> hiagain, commissioners, just very briefly, this would be money well spent, this proposal. if nothing else it will help putn