march 18th agenda. >> the hearing of the regulatory status of the private transportation networks and their role in meeting staoet's transportation goelts. >> this is an item that has been introduced by supervisor mar and i want to thank him for bringing this forward on a very important topic that i know that there is a lot of interest in this topic from the people throughout the city, and certainly in my district and so with that, i will turn it over to supervisor mar? >> supervisor mar? >> thank you, chair campos and i know that for much of this meeting that the key concern is pedestrian and street safety, and this item is a key part of making sure that there are strong policies in our city to make sure that children such as little one that passed from being hit by a driver on new year's eve and many others, can be safe on the streets.

i wanted to say that goals of this hearing are to really listen to not only the industry of the type of private vehicles but also the regulation currently in police by the california public utilities commissions and how we as a local government can insure that we have common sense local regulations that really look at it and the wild west industry that sprouted up to 3,000 to 4,000 new vehicles on the street at key times in our city and i also wanted to say over the last seven years, uber type of private vehicles who are also called transportation network companies or tmcs, or also called ride shares have become extremely popular in the transportation choices in san francisco and beyond and in neighborhoods on the west side like mine i know that the

history of accessing cabs have led to the people using more of their vehicles but as so-called, tmcs, moved away from the true donation based sharing of the economy model, there are growing concerns that their safety and accessibility policies are not sufficient, tscs have also provide a popular service, as taxis have left into the city and the residents complain to my office often about the taxi lack of responsiveness and inconsistent service and concerns, and i know that others will be here to talk about how there have been major improvements with the flywheels and other types of apps that serve i think about 1400 of the 1800 taxis in the city, the uber type of tmcs have built the better demand for the service but it can't come in the cost of public safety in my opinion, including the safety of drivers, riders and pedestrians, the death of

the little one, sophie lou, she would have turned seven years old. and the grave injury to her family shows that this is not a trivial matter, i believe that it was a preventable tragedy and another preventable tragedy on our streets. the free unregulated market for these types of vehicles is not an excuse for tragedies like this to occur. and the safety concerns that will bring up today, i believe are real, and it is coming from many residents throughout our neighborhoods, and there are key gaps in insurance coverage that can harm drivers, riders and pedestrians. vehicle inspections that only consist of sending photos to a company may not be adequate. and no brake testing, for example, cars that don't accommodate wheelchair users, i know a number of disabled

advocates and activities will raise that issue today and policies that say that service animals are not always welcome is another one of concern to a number of residents, the goals for today, this morning's hearing is to layout the issues and to learn from the mta reps and others here on what we can do at the san francisco local policy makers to make the city safer for everyone. and i intend for us to examine other model practices not only seattle's recent policy but also the other best practices and would like input from many of the stake holers that are here today as we move forward with a local policy and supplements what is going on in the state level as well and with that i would like to ask the colleagues if they would like to make opening comments before i introduce kristine from the fta. >> thank you, any comments?

>> i want to thank supervisor mar for bringing this issue to the board and there is a lot of unanswered questions around these companies in san francisco and at the same time i would like to see what their roles are in terms of playing their good neighbor part. >> if i made add, that i think that there are a number of questions that remain unanswered, and my hope is that today, we will get a lot of information from will be helpful in addressing some of those questions, this is about balancing the right of consumers to have choice and to be able to protect the public as these choices are available and i think that there are many ways in which the industry is being regulated by the california public utilities commission and i have to say that in my experience with the

california puc, just, you know, following the example what they have done with some of the companies and they don't have the best track record and so one question that i have is whether or not there should be additional regulation at the local level to supplement what existed at the state level, i think that there are issues around liability and insurance is training of drivers. and at the end of thedy we want to make sure that whoever is providing these services that there is equity and the people are playing by the same rules and so i look forward to that information and with that supervisor, mar, thank you for calling this hearing. >> i should say, before kristine presents, we also have maria from the california public utilities commission and a number of other speakers that will be following her, so kristine is the mta's deputy director of taxis and acceptable services, miss

hayashi. >> good morning, supervisors, deputy director of taxi and accessible services for the sfmta and i want to thank you, first of all for holding this hearing as you note as it is ann incredibly important topic and while the state assertion over this particular industry, and it has preempted local, regulation, i do think that it is important to have this discussion, on a local basis, to talk about how this new set of circumstances effects some local interests and so i did prepare. >> could i be very precise about the language that we use, when you mean preemption, what do you mean? i don't know if that is necessarily what has happened and so i want to make sure that we are very clear about what we are saying and accurate in the description of the language that is used. >> i am not wearing my legal hat today, i used to be a deputy city attorney i will not pretend to have legally

alliesed this, but the principle under the law is a higher level of government, completely regulates some particular subject mat and her it does tend to ex-include the jurisdiction of the local governor to also regulate the same subject matter and i think that will be an excellent question to see to what ex-at the present time they felt there might be room for local regulations. >> thank you. >> that is an excellent point. >> so first of all i want to start with a couple of slides as a matter of background, but there is a lot of text on this slide and it represents some excerpts from the san francisco charter language that was voted into the charter by san francisco voters, that and i think that all of these different elements are implicated by the cpc's decision, and what it really boils down to is first of all, safe streets for residents and visitors, second, access to public transportation by the elderly and the disabled.

and third, reduction of congestion on the city streets which also helps make muni perform better and reduction of pollution. so those four points, are reflected in this language from our city's charter. >> then, i also want to talk a little bit about what the values of regulation are. and so, when i asked myself, what it is that i am supposed to be doing as a regulator of taxis these are the values that we are trying to protect, safety is the primary purpose of regulation for both screening vehicles and drivers is where it is most implicated in the taxi industry, second, the viable point of transportation mode which includes protecting quality of service and i have to say that me and my colleagues all over the country are frequently accused of being protectionist

and being too close to the industry that we regulate and trying to protect our friends in the taxi industry. and the fact is that the government does have an interest, in preserving a taxi industry, and because the taxi industry, represents one of five important modes of transportation, taxis, in particular, and limoas well, and they offer point to point, on demand, transportation, and so the example that i always use is grandma and her groceries, you know, at some point people who cannot afford cars or do not have access to cars perhaps of disability, or income, are able to use some kind of a car service when they need it and it is important that type of service be maintained and that it be available to everybody. third, we offer, a transparent and uniform fare structure that is set by a public agent and i and designed to help the people

on low incomes so that they can access that form of transportation and then, finally, we use, our taxi industry as in a public, private partnership to provide the important para transit service and i think that we will hear the speakers today talk about how important the taxi service is to serve the disabled community. the state regulates what is called the carriers or tc, p. limo and do not use the meters for the purpose of calculating a fare, on the other hand the government requires all municipalities to adopt the taxi cap that are distinguished from them that they are required to use meter to

measure time and distance and allowed to pick up street hales. >> do airport shuttles, where do they fit into those definitions? >> those are regulated by the state of california. >> so on september 19 of 2013, the cpuc issued a decision and, it was based on a two-day workshop, and many parties have asked that there be evidentiary hearings, and the puc decided to proceed without that kind of evidentiary basis. but there were two days of workshops. as a result of that, the new industry was dubbed transportation network, companies or tncs and defined as companis that provide transportation services for compensation, using on-line enabled app or platform to connect the passengers with drivers using their personal vehicles and that is the principal distinction between a

pcerebral palsy and the tnc is that the tnc is supposed to be using a personal vehicle and i underline it on this slide because it becomes important later and i will get to that part a little later. and the cpuc decision also recognized that this was not ride sharing or car pooling. so that is why we encourage everybody to stop using the word ride sharing because it did not and never did describe the services that are providing by these companies, the cpc also recognized that what the companies are characterizing as a voluntary donation was in fact a commercial fare for hire. so some of the issues that have been a very prominent part of the debate nationally is insurance, and that is one of the more important elements of regulation to make sure that there is appropriate insurance in place. so, this cpuc's decision requires the tncs to maintain a commercial liability policies

and providing not less than a million dollars, for incidents involving the vehicles and drivers while they are providing tnc services and i think that many people are aware that that last phrase saying that the insurance would apply while the tnc is providing services as cast some doubt on to the situation if there doesn't happen to be a passenger in a car at the time that there is a collision. it was established during the cpuc's workshops by representatives with the personal insurance federation of california, what a driver's personal auto liability would not apply while they were providing these commercial services and interestingly, the terms of this excess liability insurance that has been prokured by the tnc companies is treated as a trade secret by the cpuc and so it is really not clear what the scope of coverage is. and another issue that has been discussed in this context is a

criminal background checks. because the cpuc's decision allows the tncs to conduct the criminal background checks themselves by law, they are limited to researching seven years of criminal history, they can't go father than that, to contrast with taxis because we are a government agency, that law does not apply to us and so we conduct the criminal background checks ourself and review them ourself and that gives us access to a person's entire adult criminal history. the cpuc's background checks are based on social security numbers, and not on finger prints, and that gives you a lesser quality of data when you are getting the information back about the individual. there is not really a system in place to insure that the background checks are actually conducted, the cpuc verifies that by examining the contracts between the tnc company and the background check provider.

but that is the extent of the auditing of the background check process. another thing that is in my opinion, one of the more important for san francisco and one of the square miles and the real estate of the roadways is in high demand and a lot of competition, between pedestrian and automobiles and parking and transit, and so, it is very, very important, to sfmta that we manage the cpuc decision only authorizes the tncs to use the personal vehicles, that is the key definition of a tnc is compared to a tc, p as i mentioned before. now that the activity is authorized there is actually a whole industry now of people who are leasing tnc vehicles to tnc drivers and in fact, people who manage fleets of vehicles that are available to be

leased, and this appears to me to be a violation of the permit conditions, but i don't think that it is likely to be addressed until the puc opens up the phase two of the proceedings at the end of 2014. and there are a lot of them out there. and we, yes? >> if i may, just, is there i don't know, if the puc addressed this, but is there any requirements of what it takes to be a driver? what other requirements to be and allow the driver, >> i will have a list of the requirements that they imposed but there are training requirements and driver requirements such as there were some, and there was some specificity that could not

appear like age and that sort of thing. >> through the chair, you mentioned san francisco tiny 49 square mile geography and the limited number or the amount of space and so how many cabs are in existence and how many are on the street at any time and then also, what are your best estimates of the uber type of tncs like the number on the streets at any time and the number of vehicles that may be licensed to be tnc, type of vehicles >> this may be, and puts and, that is the crux of one of my issues with this whole situation is that we have no way of knowing that, there is no mechanism by which we will be entitled to find out how many drivers or vehicles are on the street at any particular time from the tnc fleet. >> so for cabs, i know that you can definitely know this and how can you protect the public safety when you don't know how many of these private vehicles are going to be used for new year's eve or for a key time?

how can we protect the public safety if we don't know those numbers. if i asked the state government for one thing to control these vehicles, it would be control over the numbers. some are saying that the taxi drivers are losing about 15 dollars per shift or even more as the number of these private personal vehicles are increasing on the street, but do you know the impact on the

taxi industry right now from the huge rise in these type of private vehicles on the streets? >> i can tell you that companies are starting to hand back the medallions because they cannot afford the shifts or maintain the vehicles, 25 percent of the wheelchair accessible fleet is no longer in operation because the companies kanlt afford because they have migrated over to the tmc, and we have adopted a number of incentives to try to get the cab drivers back into a ramp accessible vehicles, but that is at a public cost, that is public money that is going to insensitivize that, because, we have got to get the drivers back from the tncs. and then i know from your

previous to get it accessible to the people as well and that seems like another piece of the puzzle as well. >> and we have begun the initiatives to part to market to the public to remind the people that they can hail the taxis by the smart phones and flywheel is the one that has the most taxis. on the system, these are two ads that i found in craig's list just one day and they are popping up all over the place where you can lease a tnc vehicle, and here is one, where the vehicle owner offers to

loan it out to other people, so that this creates the risk of the situation, and where you have a tnc vehicle, but you don't know who is driving it. >> wheelchair vehicles are extremely expensive and they are mechanically vulnerable because they are after market modification to add a ramp to an existing van. whether they will require a wheelchair accessible vehicle or those with disabilities and

by september 19th, 2015, actually, that is the error, that is 2014, and the one year before the initial decision, they must report how many customers requested the wheelchair service and how often that was provided and that should be an interesting report because, to date, if there is one that is all there is, if you are somebody who has a personal vehicle who is wheelchair accessible, then you need that and it is not going to put it into service so that it will make down and be more expensive. >> do the puc regulations in any way, provide any protection to anyone who needs the wheelchair accessibility? >> well it is by protection, you mean universal,

accessibility? no. if they don't want to take a dog they don't have to take a service animal. and so that is one of the reasons why it is so important to protect the taxi industry, as a form of transportation that needs to be available to people, universally in san francisco. >> the other interesting thing is that it was probably an oversight is that the decision says that the tnc vehicles may not be significantly modified from factory specifications which i believe was intended to avoid the use of stretch limo or vehicles but also has the effect of prohibiting the use of after market mode identified wheelchair accessible vans.

>> sorry a technical difficulty. >> and so i think that you have copies of the slides so i am just going to speak from my copy so that we don't lose the thread here. so, in san francisco, in 2013, the wheelchair service that was provided by taxis declined by more than half and it started at 1400 trips a month and went down to fewer than 600 trips per month and we really consider that a crisis of wheelchair transportation service and in order to maintain that we ponied up a public subsidy for the drivers who pick up the wheelchair customers that has a value of $20 per trip. >> supervisor yee do you have a question? >> just a quick clarification,

the number of rides provided for wheelchair accessibility, decreased by i am just wondering whether, the calls or the demands for maintaining the same, or... >> well, is there a correspondence with the calls coming in. >> i don't know that i have the data to measure that. but i think there is some folks here that in wheelchairs that who may want to speak to that, but to some extent i think that someone in a wheelchair probably decides to make other kinds of arrangements when they find that one type of service has just become so unreliable and you just stay home or find a friend or make other plans. >> so as i mentioned earlier as well, 25 percent of our 100 wheelchair taxis are not in service today because the

companies cannot atowered to operate them unless the drivers appear, and there used to be a surplus of drivers and now, every company is complaining that they don't have enough drivers to fill their shifts not only with the wheelchair accessible vehicles but the other vehicles as well. and another issue that has been raised about the cpuc's decision is that it allows removable trade dress, when that i cans it possible to remove the adisha of being a tnc and this could be done in the event of a collision if you are trying to convince your personal insurance carrier that you are not acting for hire at the time and, it could also be an advantage at the airport where you are not allowed to pick up, but you could take your trade dress off and pick up any way, if there is no, semipermanent like a bumper sticker or a window decal skaition that it is a tnc vehicle we don't know that it

is the same vehicle that was inspected according to the cpuc's rules that is part of the problem. and the vehicle inspections were required, there is a 19 point vehicle inspection that is required to be conducted but the cpc's decision does not specify by whom it must be conducted either by the tnc or by a licensed facility. and but if the tnc decides to do it in house, then there is really no control over who within the tnc is conducting that inspection. and the cpuc's decision does require that the inspection records be maintained in the event that the cpuc conducts post audits of compliance with that particular requirement. and discrimination was another big subject during the cpuc's hearings because the tnc

drivers are freely allowed to pick up who they want. and the drivers can rate the passengers but the pcup says that they are not allowed to discriminate either to deny service or base it on origin of religion, sex, or sexual orientation and age and, identity. i think that is a noble sentiment, but i don't know how that is going to be enforced it is a very subjective thing and so, that is a difficult point, i think. and the tncs are required to report this in september again i think this is 2014, how many rides were requested and how many rides were not accepted by the zip codes and so that will be the performance measure at the end of the year to see how many rides were requested by zip code and in that zip code, how many of those rides were

not actually provided? so, there is a number of reports that are due to the cpuc. and the difficulty from my perspective about this reporting requirement is that it really amounts to self-regulation because if i just asked the taxi industry to send me a report, when they violate something, then, i don't think that i would be very effective. but, the reports that are required, are the number of drivers down to the committed violations or who have been suspended and the zero tolerance and the out comes of investigation, and each accident or other incident which is not defined and that involves the tnc driver and was reported to the tnc and the cause and the amount paid to any party in each incident and the date and time and the amount paid by the