Two TaxiTalk.info Posts

SF Taxis: Service with Heart

In a recent public dialog, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff asked Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, ““How do you know your company has a heart?” Apparently flustered, in a “less than smooth response” Kalanick eventually talked about delivering gifts to kids during Christmas and making charitable donations.

Benioff could have found evidence of compassion more easily by looking at the San Francisco taxi industry. Each day, San Francisco taxis:

• Provide subsidized rides to seniors and disabled persons through the city’s Paratransit Taxi program.
• Use ramp vans to serve people in wheelchairs.
• Serve the city’s hospitals, medical clinics and senior housing facilities.
• Provide transportation to people who must, or prefer to, pay with cash.
• Operate clean energy vehicles (98% are required to use alternative energy).
• Charge consistent fares, without “surge pricing” that amounts to price gouging.
• Are driven by professionals who know where they’re going and can share useful information with visitors.  
• Serve tourists who can’t use a cell phone to summon a ride because they’re in town without local cell phone service.

In addition, compared to Uber, the industry treats its drivers more decently by:

• Providing extensive training to new drivers.
• Protecting drivers with relatively robust insurance in case of injuries to passengers.
• Charging fees (for the use of cars) that are predictable, rather than squeezing profits out of drivers by increasing those fees or lowering prices to customers.
• Not requiring drivers to use their own car and get their own insurance.
• Allowing them to accept tips.
• Enabling them to turn off the meter and offer a flat rate for private tours and long rides.
• Providing workers’ compensation benefits for drivers who suffer work-related illness or injury.  
• Retraining drivers who need it.

Faced with competition from “sharecropping” companies like Uber, the “Walmart taxi,” the San Francisco taxi industry is becoming more committed to its primary mission: to provide the best possible service to its passengers. Ever more, the industry realizes that compassion, if it is genuine, is good business and greed is counter-productive.

Accordingly, cab drivers are increasingly treating their passengers as they themselves would like to be treated — a human being rather than merely an object with money. They realize that each ride offers the opportunity for a rewarding human connection. That attitude leaves drivers in a better mood. And when drivers are happy, that happiness is contagious and often leads to better tips.

With its growing commitment to providing better service, the industry is stepping up its monitoring of drivers and its retraining of problem drivers. Industry leaders are pushing the SFMTA to help even more by: 1) sharing with companies complaints that are filed with the city’s 311 number, and’ 2) conducting retraining classes more frequently (at present those classes are held only once a year). Some experienced drivers have offered to volunteer their services to help with that retraining. TaxiTalk.info has distributed and posted “How To Be a Great Cab Driver: Passenger Service,” which includes suggestions for how to treat passengers. And the SFMTA is taking away permits from cab companies that have failed to fulfill minimum standards.

Those efforts are paying off. A recent investigation by the SFMTA found that requests for service from several different locations elicited a prompt response from the cab companies that were called.

Passengers can help the industry further improve. If you receive poor service, call 311 and file a complaint or ask the driver, “Do you mind if I give you some feedback on your service?” and be honest with them.
As thousands of Uber and other ride-booking cars congest our streets and pollute our air, San Francisco is becoming increasingly crowded. Over time, the need to regulate all cars-for-hire will increase. In the meantime, by working together, we can steadily improve the quality of taxi service and make the industry ever more compassionate.

++++++++++

A Platform for Yellow Cab Board Candidates (1/4/15 Draft)

Inspired by John Carver’s book, Boards That Make a Difference, and his Policy Governance Model, I offer the following principles for consideration by candidates for the Yellow Cab Cooperative Board of Directors election to be held later this year.

All candidates, potential candidates, and members are welcome to take these ideas and modify them as they see fit. Or they could start from scratch and develop a much different platform.

Either way, one or more slates of like-minded candidates could form, articulate in writing the direction they propose for the co-op, and ask members who support that platform to vote for them in the next board election.

The following scenario could play out:

1. Two or more members form a drafting committee to formulate a draft platform, invite members to discuss that draft online and in a face-to-face meeting, and then modify their platform by incorporating feedback.
2. Roughly one week prior to the deadline for candidates to announce their candidacy, the Board convenes a membership meeting, at which: a) Current Board members make statements about their thoughts concerning the future direction of the Co-op and respond to questions. b) Any drafting committees that have formed present their platform and solicit endorsements. c)The membership engages in an open discussion.
3. Following that forum, slates of candidates that back the same platform gather endorsements for their platform from members.
4. Roughly one week prior to the circulation of election materials, the Board convenes a candidate’s forum, at which: a) Candidates make statements about their thoughts concerning the future direction of the Co-op and respond to questions. b)The membership engages in open discussion.  
5. The candidate statements that are circulated with the ballot include any platforms that have been developed and the names of members who endorse that platform. Any current board members not standing for re-election this year who endorse a platform are identified (so members can better gauge the viability of the platform).

–Wade Hudson, #1229, wadeATwadehudsonDOTnet

+++++

A Platform for Yellow Cab Board Candidates (1/4/15 Draft)

1. The primary responsibilities of the Board are to: 1) adopt written policies that define the goals of the co-op; 2) adopt a job description for the General Manager (GM) that delegates to him/her the responsibility for achieving those goals; 3) hire the GM; 4) regularly evaluate how well the GM is achieving those goals.
2. The GM’s job description will: 1) direct him to operate in a collaborative manner, rather than a top-down authoritarian manner; 2) direct him to direct Yellow Cab staff to operate in the same manner; 3) direct him to work with staff to adopt job descriptions for all staff; 4) direct  him to report fully to the Board concerning his/her efforts.
3. Goals established by the Board will include items such as: 1) percentage of calls re-sent; 2) percentage of calls forfeited (accepted but not picked up); 3) percentage of profits set aside for emergencies; 4) percentage of profits set aside for profit sharing with lease drivers.
4. At least four days prior to board meetings, to allow time for transparent, broad discussion beforehand, proposed policies to be considered by the board will be emailed to drivers and posted on the bulletin board opposite the dispatch window.
5. To allow time for a more thoughtful and deliberate process, whenever feasible, initial board decisions will not be final until they are adopted at a second meeting.
6. The board secretary will maintain an updated set of board policies and will have on hand at board meetings those policies (including the bylaws), in case the board needs to refer to them.
7. The co-op will convene quarterly meetings open to all drivers to discuss: 1) how to improve service; 2) get input from drivers about how the co-op can improve service, and; 3) the financial performance of the company.
8. The co-op will set performance standards for individual drivers and compile monthly reports on how well each driver meets those standards.
9. Perhaps with a lottery, the co-op will distribute a certain percentage of its profits to drivers who exceed a certain threshold that defines good service.
10. The co-op will terminate leases with drivers and end contracts with medallion holders who fail to meet minimum performance standards.
11. The co-op will post composite monthly reports on how well the company as a whole is meeting its performance goals.
12. No more than 20 percent of the board will be employees.
13. At least three board members will be non-shareholders who can contribute expertise.
14. The board will meet only once a month for 2-3 hours, which will facilitate participation by non-shareholders with expertise but limited time.
15. Each board member will also participate in at least one committee.
16. The board will encourage members to avoid personal attacks that impugn the character, integrity, personality, or intelligence of other board members.
17. At board meetings, members will speak only when recognized by the President, who will give preference to people who’ve spoken less than others and will encourage everyone to participate fully.
18. The board will pledge to donate one half of one percent of the co-op’s profits to a broad-based coalition dedicated to improving and promoting the taxi industry — if and when companies that have contracts with at least half of the city’s medallions pledge to do the same. That coalition would be open to the Taxi Workers Alliance, the Medallion Holders Association, other companies, passengers, and supportive community organizations (stakeholders). It could finance a PR campaign to promote the taxi industry as a whole, convene educational public forums on taxi-related matters, solicit suggestions on how to improve service, and organize unified advocacy activities.
19. The board will direct the GM to establish an online discussion forum that will enable all drivers to communicate directly and horizontally with one another.
20. The board will pledge to co-sponsor, with other members of the taxi industry, a Passenger Appreciation Day that will enable participants to consider how to improve and promote taxi service.