Cab firms allowed to grow fleets

Monday, April 21, 2003 | 11:10 a.m.

The Taxicab Authority of Nevada will allow Clark County's 16 cab companies to add three more vehicles each to their fleets beginning next month.

The five-member board last week approved authorization of additional vehicle medallions effective May 15 despite a recommendation from the Taxicab Authority staff to maintain the existing level.

The county's cab companies have a total of 1,612 medallions currently authorized, including 127 that are geographically restricted and 452 that are time restricted.

One medallion is assigned to each car. Geographically restricted cabs can only pick up passengers in certain areas while time restricted cabs can only operate during specific hours.

The rest of the cabs have general medallions, which have no restrictions and can be used around the clock.

The allowance of new medallions is always a contentious battle between the cab companies and taxi drivers because company owners usually want more vehicles to increase revenue while drivers believe additional vehicles split a finite number of fares among more employees. Drivers are paid per trip and most look at adding cabs as a way to reduce their pay.

Lia Roberts, chairwoman of the Taxicab Authority, said testimony introduced by real estate expert Richard Lee was the key in the decision to grant additional cab medallions.

Lee, a vice president for First American Title Co. of Nevada, said more than 5,000 hotel rooms are under construction and there's potential for growth in tourism in 2005 when Steve Wynn's Le Reve hotel-casino opens. Lee was introduced to the Taxicab Authority by George Balaban, owner of Desert Cab Co.

Roberts said Lee's growth testimony swayed her to grant the additional cabs. The Taxicab Authority also will consider additional allocations of cab medallions in six months.

The Taxicab Authority staff had recommended against adding any cabs, suggesting that the industry still hasn't fully recovered from the effects of a travel downturn that occurred after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Rick Boxer, administrative services officer for the Taxicab Authority, said the organization has used a formula to determine when new cabs are needed and the average number of trips per medallion and trips per shift are still below levels from a year ago and from pre-Sept. 11 levels.

But taxi company owners said the formula that has been used to determine whether medallions should be added is flawed because there are more cabs on the road that are geographically restricted to pick up passengers in certain areas of town than there were a year ago.

Many of the geographically restricted cabs now on the road are owned by A-Cab, which operates exclusively west of Interstate 15, primarily in the Summerlin area.

A-Cab owner Jay Nady said his drivers rarely hit the average number of trips per shift desired by the Taxicab Authority because trips from Summerlin to any destination usually are longer than trips by tourists on the Strip.

Cab owners said they don't want their drivers to hit the suggested trips-per-shift ratio if it means they have to drive unsafely.

Jason Awad, owner of Lucky Cab Co., said another consideration for more cabs is the growing competition from the limousine industry. Limousines, which are regulated by a different state agency, the Transportation Services Authority, have increased market share since 1996.

Awad said the ratio of cabs to limousines has decreased from about 3-to-1 in 1996 to just over 1 1/2-to-1 in 2002.

The Taxicab Authority rejected arguments from the drivers and the their unions.

Ruthie Jones, vice president of the Industrial Technical and Professional Employees Union affiliated with the AFL-CIO, said airlines are canceling flights to Las Vegas, particularly from Asia, and most cabs are hired by tourists visiting the city.

She noted that the average number of trips per shift has fallen since 1999. Jones also said the completion of the monorail next January would be a threat to the taxi industry, so adding cabs now would be detrimental to drivers.