>> thank you. we are reconvening. for the next two agenda items, when making public comments we ask you to do the following. please be respectful to the presenters and do not ask questions directly at the presenters. they are not going to answer your questions here, please meet with them after the meeting or after the presentation or go out in the

hallway to talk to them there. the time limit will be reduced to two 2 minutes as we are running a full half hour behind schedule. now to agenda item no. 8. lyft accessibility. we have emily castor. >> good afternoon, my name is emily castor director at lyft. thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to you about lyft. i want to be clear about the fact that i come here humbly, not just to speak but to learn and hear ideas about the council. we are a driven company and focused on helping cities and we are always guided by the community feedback that we receive from people who live in those cities and by our values. lyft was founded with a vision to expand access to safe

friendly reliable transportation using the resources we have in our communities. over the last two 2 years since lyft launched in san francisco 10s of thousands of people use this to give people a ride. proic db providing new mobility. among these passengers as well as drivers. for those of you who are not familiar with how lyft works. please forgive me if you are already familiar with lyft. >> can you talk a little slower? >> certainly. lift is a smartphone and people log in with their facebook account with their e-mail address. to request a ride they tap a

single button. the driver accepts the ride within seconds and arrives within minutes. the photo is displayed as well as with how many minutes it will take them to an arrive. passengers are called prior to their arrival to communicate any needs they have. all payment happens by credit card to the apps so no cash is exchanged. who are lyft drivers? among the safety transportation services. drivers are people like you and me. the reason for that is that lyft under utilize transportation capacity, there are empty seats with cars on the road. in fact 80 percent of cars on the road are empty. you have probably seen that driving around town or over the bay bridge wefrm not making good use of the seats in the car.

the lyft goal to fill those seats and reduce the impact on the environment. within this i want to highlight a little known fact which is providing economic opportunity for a lot of disability drivers in san francisco. many people have, i just want to tell you a little bit about their experiences. i hope that perhaps in the future you will have a future to connect with them about their experience. if you are interested in doing that, i would be happy to connect you with them. we welcome individuals with disability and drivers on our platform and i know employment is traditionally an area of concern for the disability community because often there are barriers to employment and many individuals with disabilities do not have traditional full time employment. too fast? thanks. in particular, members of the deaf community in san francisco have formed a very large and vibrant

community on our platforms. they have presented an economic opportunity and now present a large community that have their deaf drivers and help recruit their deaf friends and are able easily to use our app and communicate with our passengers onto our electronic systems and that's a very interesting story about something that we had never thought or anticipated but is now propagated in many of our systems. we have numerous drivers with electronic wheelchairs who drive on our platform. driving for lyft is accessible to these drivers who have their own vehicle and able to use these vehicles to drive for lyft. i want to address how lyft is serving passengers with disability which is an area that has received much attention. one things is there is a diverse community.

there is no one accessible. each of the transportation services in the market offer different services. lift is a solution for blind passengers with features an allowing full voice over and easy communication tool to fulfill connections between drivers and passengers. we implemented a policy accepting animals and they are able to bring their animals with them and drivers who discriminate with passengers with animals or individuals with disabilities will be removed from that policy. since lyft is cash less, blind passengers are able to travel with piece of mind knowing they don't need to worry about receiving incorrect change from the driver because all payment happens by credit card through the app or by taking a route because at the mail is passed.

we also seen that elderly individuals and those due to disabilities value the convenience response of service so they don't have to stand on the street waiting for a vehicle to rauf. arrive. all lyft vehicles are also accessible to individuals who can enter the vehicle with assistance. those with foldable wheelchairs can put those wheelchairs into the back of a vehicle either in the trunk or backseat that the driver is happy to provide that assistance. and individuals are able to transfer into a standard seat in order to take that seat and have their wheelchair stoed in the back. they are willing to accommodate the system and even able to provide

assistance to go up to the front door where a passenger is needed a ride so it not requiring the passenger to come to the curb. they can provide that door to door service which i know it's very rare even from transportation options that is designed specifically for individuals with disabilities. i have described several ways in which i believe the platform excels in serving passengers and drivers with disabilities. there are other forms of disabilities i have not yet mentioned and we have heard from many advocates from the disability community who how passengers equipped with a ramp or lift can be accommodated on the lyft platforms. i have spent hundreds of hours doing research and numerous agencies to explore possibilities related to this question and i know how different this form of transportation is to

this current model. i was hole hoping to use pure model which are already accessible to use that to expand accessibility on our platform. our page included a lyft page to request information from owners regular people who may have such vehicles for family use. this was promoted to hundreds of local disability community services organizations and agencies throughout california. i had a team of people doing this all day for weeks and i made few inquiries myself to numerous branches and local offices disability organizations and including the department of rehabilitation and went to accessibility fares. unfortunately we received only a few applications as a result of this outreach. i think it's important to

note that lyft doesn't own the actual vehicles ourselves. we don't have a fleet. we rely on the participation of the public to provide the vehicles on our platform. it appears to me that supply is lacking to be able to provide that category of rides on a peer to peer basis. i'm sure the research will further list the reasons why it's lacking. it could be that maybe the people don't own such vehicles or because they are very costly there are individuals who are more affluent and less able to drive. since often individuals are drivers on our platform are individuals who need additional income. there may be a variety of reasons that play there for not getting a good response. i thought it was a really exciting idea since using that appear capacity. i think we got three

applications through all of our outreach which i can hardly believe. it's also clear to me working with transportation experts that proper secure mechanisms and training are required to provide safe transparent -- entrance is transport and individuals and having the equipment available to ensure that equipment is proper to accommodate a variety of different kinds of mobility devices or wheelchairs is necessary to provide an acceptable and safe reliable form of wheelchair accessible ride service. i don't believe that is something that can be welcome dated through peer to peer. also market density to provide on demand service that is request a ride, a car ride arrives within minutes is something lacking in this category. what we have learned

historically with lyft is that it doesn't work. and this is true for our business as well. what i have seen with advance scheduling. there is a reason why advanced scheduling has been employed in terms of wheelchair accessible ride service that would allow on demand service. so my current conclusion that fleet base models are better operationally to serve rides to passengers in a wheelchair. we have ride request especially to wheelchair accessible fleets and professionally trained staff. we recognize that many of the existing options that are available for that kind of service are lacking in convenience in service quality. that's a precise reason lift is so popular with current population is

that those same problems economisted -- existed with the same transportation for those communities. we continue to support those existing transportation options four wheelchair accessible passengers for passengers who require wheelchair accessible vehicles but promoting the rise of services to improve the service quality and take advantage of transportation technology in a same way that we have for peer to peer service to try to improve the user experience. so i want to tell you a little bit about what we've done with our app from a product perspective. i will try to keep it accessible to a lay person but want to tell you about the recent changes. according to the california public utilities commission which are connected with the

transportation services whether or not their fulfilled on the platform. we have introduce a new profile setting that you will see today under the lyft services. if you go to the user profile you will see an option to select access. anyone can enable that for their account and they can see a new access mode as well as the traditional mode. when a user has enabled the access mode it's possible to request one of the existing lines of service which includes classic lift, lift line which combines the carpool options and helps to take cars off the road or plus which is a larger vehicle that has 6 seats and able to accommodate wheelchairs. the request will be dispatched as a standard request for passengers, but the passenger will also receive a text

message communicating that they may ask for extra serves they have. these vehicles are not ramp or lift vehicles. they drawn from the full lift driver population. however when an individual with an access enabled profile request a ride as an additional option that person will receive information on transportation services which do confirm to accommodate wheelchairs. we are actively exploring partnerships with third party wheelchair services to she's transportation and technologies can use electric wheechz with a more convenient booking experience. just as on demand

transportation needed innovation, para transit needed innovation too. i'm participating in two upcoming para transit conferences and look forward to improving wheelchair services. will realize to improve the services and access. with that i welcome your questions. >> thank you for your presentation. do i have any councilmember questions or comments? cochair zarda? >> first of all thank you for coming here today. the council and the general public appreciate when you show up to our meetings and can talk a little bit more and open up a dialogue about accessibility and working with the senior and disability population. what is the current access

training and vehicle inspection that is in place? >> so with respect to the vehicle inspections, as i mentioned rides that are fulfilled on our platform are provided through our standard vehicle supply. those are our typical lyft vehicles which to my knowledge don't require any special equipment. they are not vehicles equipped with a ramp or lift, they are for meeting the same mechanical requirement and go through that same inspection process that has been required by us and the puc which complies with the general population. there is not special training with respect to the provision of rides to individuals with disabilities and i certainly would be open to conversation about any content that you would recommend be included for those individuals who will be receiving rides on the lyft

platform. for example i mentioned that these individuals will receive a text message inviting them to communicate with the driver to communicate their access needs. those individuals that can enter a standard vehicle, if it's your opinion that there are specific types of training that are helpful for drivers to receive, i would be open to that feedback. >> just the way it might help in trying to do this by a case by case basis understanding across the board of all drivers, this is something that you really cannot just do through a handout or wait and sigh -- see type of approach especially if this is a small app program just a start up getting ready to go.

if you have a lot of drivers in place, having the training required for all drivers, you know having access specialist coming to speak, not just a few hours. having a before and after test. like having members of the public volunteer to try out these drivers and they are being taught properly how to go about these procedures ahead of time, proactive instead of reactive. >> if i can respond to this. it might be help handout you to become a lyft drivers. we have 10s of thousands of lyft drivers in san francisco. it's not a stable application. there is a constant change who drivers are. they come on the flat forms, they are not professionals. they don't intend to do this for a career. the barriers of entry for them must be seamless. the way we provide training for them which is also important for

them as a standard operation. i worked with lyft and we used to do it in three 3-hour workshops which made it really hard for us to get enough drivers fast enough. what we did over time was make those pieces of content available online and have them go through an online training experience and quizzes them and makes sure the rides go smoothly. that's the way we administer educational information to our drivers. for example if you have a day long training in our office. we have 10s of thousands of people and physically bringing them in and the frequency if they plan to be a driver for a few weeks, it becomes extremely difficult to administer reliably. if someone actually hits some of those training and being able to accommodate that. the only line provision is a model for distribution of information for them.

that's a powerful channel an where information can be conveyed really well to be considered as a great thing to distribute content to them on this topic. >> you bring up a good point here, oversight, right, kind of hard with this peer to peer platform and keeping track of the drivers and whether they are professionally trained and whether they are actually able to provide these services and needs. as far as, do you believe or do you think it's in lyft's best interest to having regulations in place. we heard from uber and now from lyft, sounds like you have two taxi driving services in existence now in san francisco, you have one with regulations in place and they are put there for a reason to ensure that you have accessible van services and that you have a certain amount of vehicles in a fleet and doing the

advance appointment scheduling is not, it's like a separate but equal status. you are not providing the same level of accessibility. you have someone in advance saying i think i will run out of eggs on time. it's a very low low, it's hard to try to compare that. what i'm asking that despite the fact that you are a peer to peer model, do you believe and do you think it is in lyft's best interest to fore go that peer to peer model to meet the needs of the community. it's sounds like with 10s and thousands of drivers and the advertising, all the money that has gone into it, it seems that the money is there and it's more we are not regulated to provide these vans, that is not our business model.

you have done research as you said to come up on this issue and it's hard to find drivers. if you think it's in the best interest of lyft to fore go this population, 15-18 percent of san francisco to provide these vehicles in place and say we know we are peer to peer but we know this community is important to us, we want to guarantee that they will be served. do you believe that will possibly be in their best interest. >> lyft has never owned a vehicle. lyft does not operate vehicles in an hourly basis. to me lift is our peer to peer model. so it's hard for me to imagine a scenario under which we would not be operating as who we are. that's like asking an apple to be an orange. i think the interest of public policy are to make sure the services are available that taylor to the

needs of the public but not every service has to be identical. for example, with respect, if you look at some of the features of our service that far is surpass for certain categories with individuals with disabilities the capability of existing services. for example with tax easy, if you were to require that they do as good as we do to allow in facilitating and tracking communication between driver and passenger by the use of smartphone technology and telephone communication between driver and passenger and voice over accessibility features and all of those things that i described earlier, i'm guess ing that they might not like that idea, perhaps there is no need to do that because we do it well and maybe it's possible that there can be a portfolio of transportation services that are brought to the city which is what i think sf mta

does that such the needs of the public for transportation is met. if what we do is provide an on demand instant service, is on a peer to peer basis, we are legally structured that we don't own vehicles. there are many aspects of our engineering that has been created on this premise and on the nature of the scheduling of rides on an instant basis. that's like the mass of our code base of dispatching -- algorithms for the ride. >> are you sure because it sounds to me the taxi cab services took a note from lift and uber and adapted to this by using flywheel and trying to increase the usage among smart app

users as opposed to tossing out the entire existing center you are for lyft, simply to have 20-30, starting off with wheelchair accessible vans, car styles, to have them there. you know where they are at. you have drivers trained on site. this is a suggestion oovment to me that sounds like a taxi services. sounds like a fleet of drivers with a taxi services. i would suggest to you that there are taxi services in the city that are operating that business model. maybe they are best equipped to fulfill that. one thing we have done in chicago is we support the requirement of the city there to contribute revenue towards the on going viability of the wheelchair accessible taxi in chicago. that model was best to

fulfill those rides and markets like in austin texas. they are better at being a taxi service than we are. >> in the interest on time. i apologize. when you do step into a pond and taking a lot of space and looking around why can't i find that many accessible van vehicles is because there were already fleets of taxis progress that service and it also diminishes and decreases the taxi companies. to point off other taxi cab companies to say they provide this, it's fine. the reality is that no, these services are decreasing exponentially with each passing year because of this. that's why i'm suggesting because part of you in existence is decreasing those vans, picking up that point and saying we admit that we are

actually part of this issue and we are going to try to rectify it by providing our own. >> it could be that we can support that financially. one of the things from the sf mta report study this week of accessible taxi service, i'm not sure if you had a chance to read that but i understand tlg -- there is a large number of taxis not put on the street owned by these companies. i understand there are a market dynamics which we are a part that get back to the decisions of taxi companies but still remain taxi companies to do that however someone who use under utilized assets, those seem like they are to me and i wonder if there is anything they can do to encourage those vehicles. they are not being used right now and that's exactly what they

need. >> i appreciate your comments. >> councilmember kostanian? >> i heard you saying about that you had drivers that were deaf and one thing that we right of way, if they are driving how are they aware of ambulances and sounds? >> through sight. they are legal drivers in the state of california. it's not illegal to be a driver when you are deaf. the state decided that is safe and there are things like the flashing lights that emergency vehicles have which are detected by our stoplights that will make it safe for them to drive. >> thank you. >>