Causes and solutions to service refusals


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by Bruce Schaller

Published by GothamGazette.com, December 1999

Danny Glover's simple complaint about not getting a cab ignited a citywide discussion about race, fairness and crime. From the city's dailies to talk show hosts in Denver and columnists in Cincinnati, commentators are trying to make sense of some overlapping New York phenomena: commonplace frustrations of hailing a cab; multicolored racial bias; and what actions are justified by drivers' fear of robbery or assault.

We also hear occasional mention of the economic incentives drivers face. Cabbies don't want to go uptown or over the bridge because they waste time deadheading back to the golden egg of Manhattan-below-Harlem. But it's usually a brief mention that goes nowhere. "Oh, it's economics"-a dismal, hopeless, dead-end thought.

What some dismissed as a throwaway is actually the place to begin the discussion. To understand the economics of cab service refusals is to identify possible solutions. (Yes, solutions, if you care!)

Start by listening to those who were refused service, not just minorities but whites as well. A 1993 survey asked passenger complainants why they thought the driver turned them away. Their answers focused on financial motivations: drivers do not want to dead-head back from an outer-borough destination; they want to avoid becoming stuck in rush hour bridge or tunnel traffic; they believe that a trip uptown will be more profitable than a passenger's desired trip downtown. The role of race? Even nonwhite complainants pointed to these financial motivations more often than they cited racial bias.

Second, look at the refusal statistics. If refusals are caused by racial prejudice or crime, why does the refusal problem seem to be getting worse? The number of refusal complaints filed with TLC-as good a measure of the problem as we have-rose from 884 in 1992 to 2,317 in fiscal year 1999. Crime has plummeted. Have racial attitudes become that much worse?

Now look at the refusal statistics versus the economics of driving a cab. In the mid-1980s, the New York economy was booming and cabs were hard to find. (Remember Ed Koch's proposal for 1800 more cab medallions?) The average cabbie spent only 35% of his time cruising for the next fare. Cabbies had the luxury of being choosy about who they picked up. Unfortunately, some took advantage of the opportunity; over 1,400 passengers filed refusal complaints each year.

Then the economy tanked. Drivers were spending 42% of their time looking for passengers and found they could not be as selective as in more prosperous times. Refusal complaints dropped in half to 884 in 1992. Since then? Boom times have returned; drivers now spend only 35% of their time cruising for fares; and refusal complaints have risen to over 2,000 a year.

So what is the solution?

1) Shift the balance of supply and demand. Issue more taxi medallions, raise the fare, or both, and you'll have more cabbies cruising for fares and they'll be less selective about who they pick up.

2) Relieve some of the financial pressures on drivers, who work 10 or 11 hours for maybe $115 a day. If more of the day's fares went into drivers' pockets, they'd feel less financial pressure to pass over less-profitable trips.

3) Training. There is something to the idea that drivers' attitudes matter. No doubt some drivers carry racial stereotypes with them. Certainly race is playing a role when a well-dressed middle-aged black man is treated differently than a well-dressed middle-aged white man. But at least as important is drivers' attitudes about the job. Some drivers start the day with a fixed idea about where they want to work today. These drivers want to be in charge of their workday. Ask for a destination someplace else and you may get refused. Other drivers let their passengers be in charge. These drivers know that their job is to manage the demands made on them, not to control their passengers. The training task is to inculcate this mindset in the first group.

Maybe these solutions are less interesting than basic issues of bias, fairness and crime. But if we can solve the problem, or at least reduce it, why not? Changing drivers' financial incentives, with a dash of training, is the place to start.