This morning a spooky ghost story made the rounds in various local media outlets, claiming that up to a third of the city's cab drivers are ditching their jobs to work for app-based car-hire startups.
Free of many regulations that burden the taxi industry, the startups have evidently proved more appealing to certain cabbies -- particularly the ones who would rather cherry-pick their clientele.
But representatives of the San Francisco Cab Drivers Association, who first floated the report, are now trying to downplay its conclusions. They argue that a rather offhanded estimate is being presented as a scientific study, and used to draw conclusions that are still largely speculative.
It's certainly no secret that many cab drivers are defecting to so-called Transportation Network Companies (TNCs), still commonly known as "ride-shares" in San Francisco patois. Earlier this month, the SFMTA launched its own charm offensive in the form of snazzy new website for taxi drivers, equipped with job listings, restroom maps, video streams of taxi commission meetings, and a slew of other amenities. Agency staff called it a recruitment and retention vehicle.
But the taxi drivers who are absconding to Uber and Lyft aren't really the sort that SFMTA wants to keep anyway, according to Cab Drivers Association director Trevor Johnson, who characterize the TNCs as an "illegal" service.
"...The cabbies that are leaving to drive for one of the smartphone hail-able illegal taxi services are the same drivers that refuse to go to the Sunset, refuse credit cards, only pick up at the airport or the bar at 2 am," Johnson wrote, via e-mail. "These are NOT the quality drivers, these are the same drivers everyone has been complaining about."
While Johnson conceded that some drivers are indeed leaving the business for good, he ascribed that choice to "desperation" over the increased competition from the app-based startups. He adds that the one-third figure that's circulating in the press is by no means definitive; he's merely extrapolating from available data points.
Thus, the reports that began proliferating this morning bore many of the statistical claims that taxi interests have been hammering for months, usually without hard evidence to substantiate them. Except that some reporters drew their own conclusions, attributing the taxi exodus to the start-ups' "superior dispatch technology," rather than their lack of regulations.
Such assessments rankled Johnson, who'd evidently hoped he could spin the one-third statistic in a direction more to his liking.
In interviews this afternoon, Johnson and SFCDA President Barry Korengold were quick to steer reporters back on message. Johnson is fairly certain he knows which cab drivers are fleeing, and which are hanging on. He believes the app-based startups are inheriting all the bad actors in the cab industry -- the ones who either had their licenses revoked, or not approved in the first place.
In previous years, this class of drivers might have gone to work for an off-the-books medallion broker. Now they're working for Uber and Lyft, Johnson argues.
"Overall the point is that the public wanted the cab industry cleaned up," he concludes. "Well, they got it in spades."
A spokesman from Uber declined to comment.
