WORLDWIDE
THE BIG APPLE is at the forefront of our worldwide section, headed by a taxi appli- cation bidding process for New York’s cabs. It
looks to be a battle royal between various IT companies, but when you have a contract like NYC up for grabs it does attract large interest. Our second story concerns the state of limbo currently in place on whether all or just some of the iconic yellow cabs need to be wheelchair accessible. And from down under we report on a spate of gang attacks against Melbourne’s Indian taxi community. And if you are thinking of going to Europe this summer, then see our AA report.
from USA NEW YORK’S TAXI APP COMPETITION SHIFTS
INTO OVERDRIVE The competition to transform the New York taxi cab experience is hotting up. The race began in March, when the city’s Taxi and Limousine Com- mission put out a request for proposals to develop an application that would allow passengers to pay fares with smart phones. More than a dozen tech companies showed up for the informational meeting, and had until June 14 to submit their ideas. Among the competitors are Hailo and Get Taxi. The two developers are already competing in London, where Hailo says it has 4,500 registered users while Get Taxi’s signed up 1,000. “We are very driver-focused,” Jay Bregman, co-founder and chief execu- tive of Hailo, which is based on a boat in the Thames, and which recently opened an office in Chelsea, told Crains New York. In March the compa- ny received $17 million in new funding from Accel Partners to expand its operations. GetTaxi, which is based in Tel Aviv, Israel with operations in Moscow and Israel as well as London, announced that it has secured $20 million to sup- port a New York City launch. “We have an enterprise solution for businesses,” said Jing Wang Herman, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. veteran who was recently named CEO of Get- Taxi USA. Companies keep accounts directly with GetTaxi and employees never have to bother with payments or receipts, she explained. The two-year-old company’s financing comes from its original backers, Access Industries, a global industrial and investment firm run by Len Blavatnik, which owns Warner Music, and the company’s founders, Sha- har Waiser and Roi More. The investment brings GetTaxi’s total financing to $30 million. Though the request for proposals process has been cause for grumbling among tech companies, some of whom would have preferred to let the free market pick the winner, New York is prized territory for any taxi-relat- ed business. Yellow cabs alone generate more than $2 billion in annual revenue from fares. The winning company will make its money from trans- action fees - a tiny fraction of the fare - charged to the driver. The taxi commission expects to pick a winning smart phone app by November. The company will then have four months to get its system up and running. Though the taxi commission will offer the winner an exclusive contract, both companies say they are planning on sticking around New York no matter what happens. “There are many ways to launch in New York,” Ms. Herman said. Mr. Bregman seems to agree. “We’re going to launch this service notwith- standing [what happens with the request for proposals],” he said. “In London, eight apps launched at the same time ours did, and some of those businesses are no longer around.”
TLC FORM WORKING GROUP TO LOOK AT WAV
OPTIONS The Taxi and Limousine Commission is taking a second look at whether or not the entire yellow cab fleet should be accessible to the disabled. The agency is forming an accessibility working group that will be chaired by a commissioner who says a wheelchair user should be able to ride in any of the 13,200 taxis that are licensed and regulated by the city. Only 230 or so now have wheelchair ramps. TLC Chairman David Yassky said he still believes the agency’s more limit- ed plan - putting 2,000 new taxicabs with wheelchair ramps on the streets
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and establishing a dis- patching system - is best for riders and the industry. But Yassky said he did- n’t want to “get ahead of”
the committee,
which commissioner Frank Carone will lead. The goal is to ensure a wheelchair user can get a cab where the fleet mainly operates – mid- town and downtown, Yassky said. “Frank has said clearly that he believes there needs to be 13,000 accessi- ble vehicles,” Yassky told the New York Daily News. “Others would say you can do it with fewer vehicles. That’s what the working group is for – to iron that out.” The working group will include commission members, advocates for the disabled, drivers and fleet owner representatives, Carone said: “My ulti- mate goal is 100 per cent accessibility for many reasons,” Carone, a Brooklyn lawyer, said. “It is unconscionable to me that this iconic fleet, the symbol of the city, is not available to those whose freedom of movement is compromised, whether they use a wheelchair or a can or have some other sort of disability.” The formation of the panel comes as the city’s plans are in legal limbo. A Manhattan Supreme Court judge last month issued a temporary order blocking the city from expanding the yellow cab fleet while also creating a new class of livery cars that could pick up street hails in northern Man- hattan and the other boroughs. Fleet owners argued the plan is illegal because it wasn’t approved by the City Council. Their lawsuit can move forward, the judge ruled.
FEDERAL APPEALS COURT RULING While the TLC considers its position, a federal appeals court has struck down a ruling that would have required New York City to give taxi licences only to wheelchair accessible vehicles. The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Americans with Disabilities Act does not require the city to demand that cabbies serve the disabled, only that the city not discriminate against disabled people seek- ing a licence to drive a cab. That’s despite the fact that only two per cent of the city’s yellow taxis are wheelchair accessible. The city can keep moving toward the contract with Nissan to provide New York with a “Taxi of Tomorrow”: a minivan with transparent roofs, USB chargers and extra legroom - but no easy access to people in wheelchairs. According to Transportation Nation, Mayor Bloomberg praised the deci- sion to let the new cab project move forward. “This ruling is consistent with common sense and the practical needs of both the taxi industry and the disabled, and we will continue our efforts to assist disabled riders,” he said. Assuming Nissan signs a contract with the city, it will become the sole provider of New York’s yellow taxis. The new models would be rolled out at the beginning of next year, as older cabs are retired. But the Taxis for All Campaign decried the ruling in a statement: “New York City has more taxis than any city in America. Yet only 232 (1.8 per cent) out of 13,237 taxis are accessible to people who use wheelchairs. Because subway stations are also inaccessible, the lack of acces- sible taxis has left wheelchair users with no viable way to travel in New York City.” The lower court ruling had called access to wheelchair-friendly cabs “a basic civil right.” Disability Rights Advocates’ attor- ney Sid Wolinsky, who represented some plaintiffs in the case, blasted the city for not delivering on that right. “The Bloomberg administration has been astonishingly hostile to people with dis- abilities,” he said. “The notion that New York City would now have a taxi fleet that is mostly not accessible when cities like London have had a 100 per cent accessi-
Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York
PHTM AUGUST 2012
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