Nevada regulators struggle with poor residential taxi service

Friday, Nov. 17, 2000 | 11:01 a.m.

One way the Taxicab Authority of Nevada could keep an eye on Clark County's 1,500 cabs would be to monitor them from space.

The Global Positioning System -- a U.S. Defense Department monitor now used commercially -- could keep track of where cabs are at all times, assuring regulators that Las Vegas neighborhoods receive adequate service.

GPS uses three high-orbit satellites to triangulate positions on Earth, locating positions within feet.

Using the GPS was one of several ideas discussed by regulators Thursday in a meeting on improving cab service to local neighborhoods. The Taxicab Authority believes some neighborhoods are ignored by cab drivers who do most of their driving around the Las Vegas Strip, hotel-casinos and the airport.

Drivers make more money shuttling passengers between the airport, the hotels and the convention centers than they can in the neighborhoods. Cab companies have little control over the drivers, who can operate anywhere a company is certificated. Most companies are allowed to serve the "golden triangle," which includes the major resort concentrations.

But some drivers ignore dispatched calls when a local resident phones for service. And, sometimes, even the closest cab to the neighborhood is more than a half hour away.

When the Taxicab Authority decided to investigate, it invited drivers, cab company owners and the public to a meeting to discuss possible solutions to the problem. Several owners attended Thursday's session, but only a couple drivers showed up -- most of them were at work since companies were allowed to use their entire fleets during Comdex.

James Jimmerson, chairman of the Taxicab Authority, said he is convinced technology could hold some solutions to concerns about service to neighborhoods. That's why he asked owners what they thought about GPS.

The owners were skeptical.

"If the Taxicab Authority is going to try to be a Gestapo, it's not going to work," said Cheryl Knapp an executive at Whittlesea-Blue Cab Co.

Knapp said drivers by nature are suspicious and would look at GPS as "Big Brother" spying on them.

"People are paranoid," Knapp said. "That's why 'The X Files' is so popular."

Even Robert Anselmo, administrator of the Taxicab Authority, said he suspected cab drivers with monitoring devices would spend most of their time trying to figure out how to disable the system.

Rick Flaven of Deluxe Taxicab Service said most GPS operations with which he is familiar are so complicated that they aren't worth installing. Anselmo added when the Taxicab Authority did some preliminary investigating on GPS, the agency found that cab companies in California were looking to unload their systems on whoever would buy them.

Jimmerson was unimpressed.

He said he expected drivers and owners wouldn't support GPS because they aren't even convinced that there is a problem with service to outlying neighborhoods.

"I was sort of expecting that reaction (on GPS)," he said.

Taxicab Authority member Adriana Escobar Chanos said one of the realities of new technology is that it tends to take privacy away from people. That attitude was evidenced by owners who fear that the satellite systems would be able to monitor a cab's speed, the number of passengers it is carrying and whether a car's air conditioning is running.

Yellow-Checker-Star Cab Cos. driver Mike Higgins suggested developing a zone system that would help identify the location of all cabs. He also advocates a centralized dispatch system for Southern Nevada's 13 cab companies.

But that idea didn't get much support from the companies or the regulators, who fear that a centralized dispatch system could lead to a reduction in competition. But Higgins noted that it would put an end to the practice that bothers drivers the most about working the neighborhoods. Drivers say they are most discouraged by people who call them and a competitor at the same time. The cabbie that arrives first gets the fare; the other one gets nothing. A centralized dispatch system, Higgins said, would prevent that from happening.

The cab company owners said the public already has some unreasonable expectations of service.

George Balaban, who owns Desert Cab Co., said some of the people who call for cabs in the outlying areas do so after they have their own car trouble and they expect a ride to arrive within minutes. But navigating through traffic isn't any easier for taxi drivers, he said, and drivers are going to experience the same delays as anyone else on the roads during rush hour.

But the owners said they do maintain a list of preferred customers -- those who make runs between their homes and their doctors or pharmacies on a regular basis. The companies said drivers would gladly take care of a call in the residential area from a preferred customer as long as they are assured of providing the ride and getting the fare.

Those at the meeting also discussed changing the boundaries of areas currently served by taxis with medallions with no restrictions. Geographically restricted cabs have to pick up passengers from zones outside the resort corridor, but could deliver them to any location.

The current boundary on geographically restricted cabs allows taxis to pick up customers west of Valley View Boulevard. As a result, cabs could stage at the Rio hotel-casino. The Taxicab Authority is considering changing the boundary to the west and to the east to prevent the geographically restricted cabs from staging at the Rio or the Hard Rock hotel-casino. In theory, that would push the geographically restricted cabs out into neighborhoods instead of lining up at those two off-Strip hotels.

But the owners say that would only push drivers to stage at some other hotel near the boundary so they could still stay close to the lucrative Strip market.

Jimmerson said the testimony received at Thursday's meeting would be reviewed by other members of the Taxicab Authority. A decision on the issues of service to the neighborhoods probably won't be considered until January.