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Board Upholds SFMTA Revocation of SF American Taxi Dispatch Permit
Summary
The San Francisco Board of Appeals on April 29 upheld SFMTAs revocation of SF American Taxis dispatch permit, finding the agency had good cause under Transportation Code Section 11.07 after months of insufficient dispatch data and noncompliance with progressively stricter performance benchmarks.
Board of Appeals President Anne Lazarus and a 3-1 majority of commissioners on April 29 denied an appeal by SF American Taxi and upheld the Municipal Transportation Agencys revocation of the companys dispatch permit.
The appeal challenged a multi-year SFMTA rule that sets progressively higher dispatch-performance thresholds (50 medallions / 250 verifiable dispatch calls per day in 2013, rising to 100 medallions / 500 calls by 2015). Counsel for SF American Taxi argued the rules impose an undue burden on small dispatch services, particularly where drivers are independent contractors and third-party vendors control reporting. "It protects larger organizations to the detriment of smaller organizations," said Philip Achilles, president of SF American Taxi.
SFMTAs Enforcement and Legal Affairs Manager Jarvis Murray told the Board the tiered standard aims to ensure reliable citywide dispatch service and protect consumers from unreliable operators. "We require everyone to be on an e-hailing app that allows them to pick up calls directly through your smartphone. We include it in dispatch performance," Murray said. He and investigators described repeated requests for verifiable electronic data from the vendor Flywheel and said SFMTA had to obtain data directly because the company had not produced it in the required format.
Murray described the staged approach as a three-year process intended to give companies time to comply while raising the citys baseline for reliable dispatch service: "This is a 3 year process. This isn't something where we said, turn it on tomorrow." He added that SFMTA had worked with other dispatch companies through administrative probation and remediation but that Americans dispatch provided insufficient evidence of a credible plan to meet the standard.
Counsel for SF American Taxi and its president said drivers and medallion holders had been discouraged from affiliating with the company and that Flywheel reporting had been inconsistent. "Flywheels lack of information is just one issue," counsel said, adding that independently operated drivers cannot be compelled to accept calls in the manner the regulation envisions.
After deliberation the Board concluded SFMTA had demonstrated good cause for revocation based on the evidence presented about reliability, missing or unverifiable data, and the agencys authority to set performance conditions tied to public-service obligations. The motion to deny the appeal and uphold the revocation passed 3-1.
The Board did not overturn the underlying regulation and noted that appeals concerning the policy itself should proceed through the rulemaking or legislative process rather than the Boards adjudicative docket. The revocation takes effect according to the agencys enforcement schedule; the decision maintains SFMTAs authority to condition dispatch permits on verifiable performance benchmarks.
Speakers quoted or documented in this article appeared in the Boards record, including Jarvis Murray (SFMTA Enforcement Legal Affairs Manager) and Philip Achilles (president, SF American Taxi). The matter was heard as Item 6 on the Boards April 29, 2015 agenda. The Boards official minutes record the 3-1 vote to deny the appeal.
