Magazine Feature…Well, not exactly, but I’ll tell you why.

The New York City taxi technology debate: Much ado about what exactly?

By Kathryn Carlson  

About three months ago, I left my Canadian hometown behind and landed at John F. Kennedy Airport with my entire life packed in two black hockey bags. When I packed those bags, I was a bright-eyed twenty-three year old girl with a plan. But standing alone in the airport parking lot and sweating under the scorching August sun, I didn’t feel like I had much of a plan at all.

There was no familiar face to greet me and frankly there was nothing remotely comforting about my situation. Once I finally reached the front of the taxi queue, the driver helped me schlep the bags into the trunk of his taxi. His shiny yellow taxi. His shiny yellow taxi in New York City.

Suddenly I wasn’t so frightened. Suddenly I was elated. I was officially in the Big Apple, zig-zagging the streets in the iconic yellow cab that I had only seen in films and on television. It was as if that taxi ride was a right of passage, confirming my transition from a disillusioned girl who quit her job in the Prime Minister’s Office to become a journalist in New York. Little did I know that my first investigative story would be born from that taxi experience.  And little did I know that you would be reading this article instead of the one I set out to write.

I initially pitched this story as an article that would take an in-depth look into an intricate debate being fought out on the city’s streets and in the courtroom – a debate about a mandatory technology makeover of New York’s yellow taxis. It was intended to be a piece that explained why the Taxi & Limousine Commission (TLC) is requiring that all of the city’s more than 13,000 yellow cabs be equipped with a Global Positioning System (GPS), credit and debit card machine, personal information monitor, and text messaging capabilities, before their next inspection. And it was also supposed to relay the reasons why some of the city’s drivers are so intent on putting the breaks on the installation of the equipment.

I began my research as usual and started off with an extensive online search for media coverage of the September strike. While as a journalist I should have known better, I naively took what was reported at face value. It wasn’t until I read between the lines that I realized there were significant holes in much of the coverage. More importantly, I discovered that there were significant holes in the TLC’s justification for the technology and in the drivers’ objection to its installation.

What soon became suspicious was that not many of the people I ended up speaking with were able to provide any answers that held more than a drop of water. Meanwhile, the bucket was full of conspiracy theories including Big Brotheresque schemes and allegations of financial wrongdoing. One question led to another and the ‘answers’ seemed like public relations spin conjured up for the sake of sound bites. For all I know, everything might have been done by the book and for legitimate reasons, but at this point the fishing expedition for answers to what seemed like simple questions has been less than fruitful.

Drivers were often quoted in the media complaining about having their movement tracked by the GPS and having to dish out thousands of dollars of installation charges and monthly fees. Bill Lindauer, committee member of the New York Taxi Workers Alliance (NYTWA), said he was outraged by the requirement. “This is a moral and financial debacle. It tracks drivers as if they were criminals and financially, it’s crippling,” he said. “A lot of what’s out there about this is lies. The TLC lies, brokers lie, garage owners lie, there’s a lot of sleezeballs in this industry.”

While I might not have put it quite that way, I can attest to the dizzying amount of misinformation that made getting to the bottom of this situation a journalist’s nightmare. After dozens of interviews, thirty hours of taxi ride-alongs, and days spent sifting through stacks of articles and court documents, I have nothing more to show for my work than a smattering of information that doesn’t add up and paints a blurry picture at best.

I should admit the fact that because I had developed an affinity for taxi drivers after that August cab ride, I was initially convinced that the drivers had a solid argument against the TLC. I sympathized with Mamadou Sangare, a taxi driver with whom I spent a couple afternoons, when he spoke of how his livelihood would be affected. “They’re going to know where I am all the time,” said Sangare. “They’re going to know how fast I’m going, how much money I’m making. They’re tracking me down, telling me what to do, and I’m going to lose a lot of money.”

When I asked him who “they” were, he said he was referring to the TLC. But in sifting through court documents pertaining to the lawsuit brought forward by the NYTWA at the end of September, I read that the TLC would not have access to any information to which it does not already have access. And while that may sound reassuring, I could not confirm with anyone exactly how the information would be secured, how the GPS actually works, and who would be privy to the information collected by the GPS system.

Sangare said he was angry that the TLC was dictating how he ran his business. “We are independent workers,” he said. “They won’t let us have a union but they tell us what to do, how much to charge, they control us.”

It wasn’t until I spoke with a garage owner who sits on the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade that I realized this wasn’t a simple black and white situation. He spoke with me ‘on background’, meaning that I can’t quote or name him in my story but I can use the information he provided.

He explained that the taxi technology requirement was announced in 2004 and was offered to passengers as what the TLC is calling a “give back” for that year’s 26 percent fare increase. The TLC claims they mandated the technology in order to improve the taxi ride experience, create better efficiency within the industry, and provide information to the City for policy purposes.

The garage owner also set me straight by explaining that there’s a lease cap on the amount that garage owners can charge a driver per day or per week to rent a medallion cab. The media coverage and Sangare’s statements did not reflect that fact and, instead, it was widely reported that the cost to lease a medallion cab would increase significantly in order to off-set the cost of the system. (A medallion is a small plate attached to the hood of the cab which authenticates it as a valid and registered New York City yellow taxi. About a quarter of the city’s drivers own their taxi and medallion, which cost upwards of $400,000, while the rest lease the medallion and cab from a garage).

What I also realized was that while the NYTWA – which claims to represent 7,000 of the city’s approximately 45,000 drivers – was shouting about the installation cost to the driver, that cost is actually the responsibility of the medallion owner. In fact, medallion owners can avoid that cost by selecting a certain contract plan with their vendor of choice. By choosing a payment plan with free installation, drivers forfeit the right to any portion of the advertising revenue collected by the vendors through ads on the personal information monitor. Though the system is already installed in some taxis, vendors say it’s too early to tell just how many millions of dollars they stand to gain from this requirement.

Next, I interviewed Ibraheem Basir, logistics coordinator with the now-bankrupt Taxi Technology Ltd. – originally one of the four technology vendors – and he explained that the main purposes of the system were to facilitate credit and debit transactions and create electronic trip sheets. Trip sheets, which were traditionally done by hand by the driver, state the time and location of each fare pick-up and drop-off. The TLC requests the start and end points of each journey to ensure that the fare charged is appropriate to the distance traveled and that the meter has not been tampered with.

“This is not like a honing device or a surveillance system,” Basir said. “At the end of the day, the functionality is keeping the electronic trip sheets. When a person gets in a cab, it sends a report out to the computers as to where they are and when they get out it sends another report. However, at 11:55, can I go and say I want to find John Smith and type his name into a computer? You can’t do that.”

Similarly, once I finally convinced someone from the TLC to speak with me, I was told that only a cab’s location at a precise moment can be ascertained. “It provides a snapshot in time rather than a moving blip,” said Allan Fromberg, spokesperson for the commission.

This sounded convincing to me, until I stopped to think about it.

The GPS uses satellites to determine the relative positions of objects using the geometry of triangles and the receiver calculates its position by measuring the distance between itself and three or more GPS satellites. How is it that the GPS allows someone to locate a certain cab at a precise moment but not be able to track it by finding its location second by second?

What furthered my confusion was that Fromberg said the TLC never even asked the vendors to include GPS in the system in the first place. Rather, the commission stipulated what it wanted to accomplish and the vendors came up with the scheme to materialize those desires.

“The TLC did not ask for GPS,” said Fromberg. Not so, say officials from one of the vendors.

            “The GPS was required by the TLC,” said Joey Ledford, the offsite public relations spokesperson for the company. “When you compete for these contracts, there are criteria that are outlined by whoever is issuing the contracts. The GPS was one of the criteria.”

As for the TLC’s claim that the GPS will help to locate lost items, Fromberg was unable to articulate exactly how the GPS will be able to assist in determining which vehicle the passenger left his or her belonging. When I spoke with Ledford, he was equally at a loss for a convincing explanation of that functionality. Surprisingly, he was unaware that this was one of the stated functions of the system. “I don’t see how the technology will help to locate lost items,” Ledford said. “If you don’t have a receipt then you have a problem.”

            Aside from the GPS, the other requirement that has some drivers angry is the five percent service fee they must pay on credit and debit transactions and the fact that there is no minimum charge for those transactions. While a five percent fee over the course of a year can add up and while it’s in the vendors’ and the TLC’s interest to say so, both likely rightly estimate that the credit and debit options will mean more fares, longer trips, and better tips.

            Bill Ciofero, a cab driver of 30 years, isn’t so sure of this and said that he and other drivers have chatted about ways to limit the amount of plastic transactions. He said drivers might post a sign stating there’s a minimum charge for credit or debit cards. Or perhaps they’ll simply say that the machine isn’t working.

            Though the privacy concerns and transaction fees may be part of the reason some drivers are against the system, at this point, I think it’s hardly a convincing case. It seems that while drivers may be hooting and hollering about the machine heating up the cab or the radiation affecting their health, they are primarily concerned about the potentially significant blow to their incomes.

Ciofero said some drivers make an extra couple hundred dollars a week in un-taxed off-the-meter fares. Because of the technology, drivers won’t be able to skim a little of the top and it will be easier for the government to audit their incomes. “With the GPS being installed, a lot of guys will get out of the business because of the whole tax issue,” Ciofero said. “Some of these guys either have never paid their taxes or pay a lot less than they should.”

Professor Graham Hodges of Colgate University who was a driver himself and wrote a book about the industry, said that some form of tax evasion does go on and agrees that this technology will put a dent in drivers’ incomes. “The machine will track the income that drivers make. Some drivers will be affected, but it’s hard not to sympathize when the highest paid drivers make somewhere around $42,000 a year.”

And it’s no secret that the recent ‘strikes’ were lucrative for many drivers as well. What’s striking to me is that for three and a half years, the industry has known that this technology was coming. Why wait until the very last minute to stage two strikes and launch a lawsuit?

            The NYTWA said it was strategic, the TLC said it was an irresponsible last ditch effort or a way to rally the disorganized drivers for the sake of future bargaining, and some drivers said that working during the ‘strikes’ made them twice as much money as they would’ve made on a regular day. “We made a fortune those days,” said Ciofero. “We did a ton off the meter, flat fares, zone fees. We really made out good those days.”

In the end, what it all appears to come down to on the drivers’ side is money – specifically un-taxed money. On the other hand, the motives of the TLC are more difficult to define. Whether it’s to crack down on the income tax issue, to ‘spy’ on the movement of drivers (about 95 percent of which are immigrants), or simply to bring the industry into the twenty-first century for the sake of the passengers and the drivers themselves, is still unclear.

            So here I am, overwhelmed with “no comments,” misinformation, and ‘answers’ that are so full of holes that if they were cheese, they’d surely be Swiss. After two months of research, I’m not buying the lines that the drivers, the TLC, or the NYTWA are selling.

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Audio Podcast: Word on the Street

iWonder

Someone recently asked me whether I would rather be given ten dollars or a discman. I actually stopped to think, pondering what I would possibly do with a bulky portable CD player, and then decided I would take the cold hard cash. Five years ago, I would’ve laughed at that question and wouldn’t have parted with my trusty discman for any less than fifty big ones.

The point is that new technology is always around the corner and the consumer is often the one who is behind the times. We don’t even know what we want until some corporation makes something nifty and puts it into our hands. Then pretty soon we can’t remember what life was like without it.

The next big question might very well be not whether the Internet will obviate the need for newspapers, but rather how soon it will be before the “death of print” as we know it becomes a reality. Arguably, there will always be those people who can’t fathom curling up in bed with their laptops. This is true, but we have no idea what devices the world’s techies will cook up next.

Like I said earlier, I’m a print girl. But what happens when print no longer exists? Alas, my desire to translate my skills into ones that are timely, relevant, and lasting.

Not all for naught: Lessons learned

I re-learned two important lessons this week: a) never underestimate the importance of doing your own preliminary research b) don’t believe everything you read.

I’m a print girl. That’s what I’m used to. Writing. This whole multimedia thing threw me for a loop and I temporarily forgot certain basic reporting skills. I walked into this story with a basic grasp of the issue at hand and a very elementary understanding of how the New York taxi industry works. That amount of knowledge wouldn’t have been enough to start writing a magazine feature, so how did I possibly think I could start shooting and editing a web video?

I realized that I had to start digging – and digging pretty deep. I read the court documents that denied the plaintiffs a reverse on the technology requirement and I delved into the Schaller NYC taxi factbook. For anyone curious about the 1.8-billion dollar industry which sees about 240 million passengers each year, I recommend perusing the factbook for some jaw-dropping statistics and information on the intricacies of the sector.

My research helped clear up some of the misinformation I was reading in the mainstream media. For example:

1. There is a lease cap on the price of leasing a medallion (dispelling the myth that leases will immediately and inevitably increase).
2. The vendors of the technology system offer different payment options and most drivers have opted for the plan whereby the vendors pay for the installation of the system (dispelling the myth that owners will have to front thousands of dollars for the equipment).

So I went back to the drawing board and started over. Though this learning experience was indeed time-consuming, the lessons re-learned were definitely priceless.

Eureka!

In, out, trim, overwrite, capture, sequence, interplay, frame, bin…Indeed, I just spent 11 hours editing what turned out to be an amateurish-looking rough cut of my soon-to-be more professional-looking web video.

Most imortantly, I finally realized how important it is to look technology in the eye and not be the first to blink. For once, I didn’t lose the game of chicken, admit defeat, or toss in the towel.

I’m actually quite grateful for the opportunity to be thrown blindly into the daunting world of multimedia reporting. What better time to learn these skills than when most news organizations are looking to provide more and better web content for their Internet-surfing news consumers?

Lesson of the day: One of my professors recently said that print journalists can’t let the multimedia reporters take over and get away with it. We need to stand up to them. How? Learn their tricks and do them better!

Learning curve…

I just gave myself a pat on the back: I woke up and my blog is still alive.

I’m proud of myself (perhaps undeservedly) for managing to create a website where I can post my thoughts and discoveries. I’m one of those people who is entirely intimidated by all things “html” and fears anything that requires even a basic understanding of technology.

Hence the reason I’m taking the aforementioned multimedia journalism class (see post below).

Through four years of undergrad in Canada’s capital city, I put off enrolling in any course that had to do with new media reporting. But alas, I can’t ignore the online trend any longer. I think it’s fair to say that my hand was forced by the almighty 24-hour news cycle, offering up-to-date information on the hottest stories and available at the click of the mouse.

So I plan to hit the ground running, or typing, or taping, or whatever is necessary to prepare myself for a multimedia newsroom. Tomorrow is a new day: one that involves a video camera and raw footage for my taxi tracking multimedia project.