The California Public Utilities Commission did not even consistently collect the most basic industry information, such as ride requests and miles driven, the report from the San Francisco County Transportation Authority shows.

The state’s spotty information about company operations makes it more difficult for policy makers, especially at the local level, to address top priorities like road safety, air quality and access to transportation for people with disabilities, the study says.

Cities bear the brunt of congestion and other industry side effects — particularly San Francisco, which had by far the greatest ride concentration of any municipality in the state, with more than 820,000 trips per square mile in the year ending Aug. 30, 2020. But they have little jurisdiction over the ride-hailing giants, which are regulated by the state.

“The lack of accurate, timely and transparent data has left localities without necessary information to support a basic understanding” of ride-hailing company operations within their borders, the study said. 

According to the report, the commission let Uber and Lyft submit inconsistent and incomplete data in their mandatory annual reports to the agency.  

The problems are exacerbated “if not directly caused by” the commission’s unclear reporting requirements and “lack of quality assurance or enforcement of quality standards,” it said.

On Tuesday, Joe Castiglione, deputy director for technology, data and analysis at the Transportation Authority, presented the study to its board.

“TNC 2020: A Profile of Ride-Hailing in California,” is the first broad analysis of annual reports from Uber and Lyft, which are the dominant players in a sector known as transportation network companies. It covers September 2019 to August 2020, the interval for which the most complete data is available.

Although the transportation agency’s initial goal was to examine ride-hailing’s effects on the state’s people and environment, it also found “pervasive” problems with the commission’s data collection practices.

Among the study’s findings:

• Lyft filed only 36% of the required data with the commission, while Uber reported more than 99%, suggesting that the commission enforced the reporting rules inconsistently. 
• Even basic data on company activity was self-contradictory, with Lyft stating two different figures for its total completed trips that varied by 49.7 million trips, or 81%. Uber’s totals varied by 9.3 million trips, or 6%.
• If San Francisco had accurate figures, Castiglione told the board, it could better assess whether Uber and Lyft are paying the city a per-trip surcharge that funds public transportation.
• Uber produced an estimated 494,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, an amount comparable to that released by the 2020 Caldwell Fire in Northern California, which burned 81,000 acres. Almost a third of those vehicle emissions occurred with no passengers aboard. Because Lyft’s mileage data was incomplete, its emissions could not be estimated.
• While ride-hailing companies promised to reduce congestion through shared travel, the data shows that just 14% of calls are for “pooled” rides, and only 7% are filled.
• Only about half of all requests for wheelchair-accessible vehicles were served. Uber completed 47%, and Lyft 53%.
• Lyft reported three times as many public safety incidents on a per-trip basis as Uber did. These include collisions, assaults, harassments, drunk driving complaints and traffic citations. Lyft reported 30 times as many assaults and harassments as Uber did on a per-trip basis.

However, the study noted that the firms may be reporting differently, “pointing to the need for increased review by regulators.”

The ride-hailing firms have said that more than 99% of their trips end without safety issues, and that they have added security features to their apps. Uber, for example, offers “share my trip,” which lets riders send their location to friends or family. Lyft has a similar option.

The state commission has also released the firms’ 2021 data filings, but the local study said they appeared to be even less complete, and so heavily redacted they could not be fully evaluated.

The Transportation Authority emphasized that the commission, which also regulates driverless vehicles across California, has been heavily redacting its reports on them as well, even though cities need quality data on how the nascent services may affect them.

In 2013 the commission became the first agency in the nation to legalize ride-hailing, and is the only state agency that collects comprehensive data on the industry.

Terrie Prosper, the commission’s spokeswoman, said in an email that the agency was aware of the city’s concerns. “CPUC staff have been working with the TNCs to rectify many of the concerns for the 2020 data and for subsequent reporting years,” she said. 

Uber and Lyft spokespeople said in emails Monday that they had complied with the commission’s requests for information, but questioned the study’s overall conclusions. They did not respond to questions about specific findings.

The commission’s faulty data collection came to light in October 2021, after the Public Press obtained data on assaults and harassments from the 2020 annual safety filings for Uber and Lyft under the California Public Records Act. It was the first public disclosure of any annual ride-hailing safety reports, revealing that numbers the firms submitted to the commission varied widely.

The commission confirmed in a ruling in January 2022 that it had let the ride-hailing giants use varying definitions of sexual assault since at least 2017, and this “could impact the total number and types of incidents reported in their annual reports.”

The commission in June 2022 voted to require uniform definitions in reporting assault complaints. It did not address other categories of data.

San Francisco Supervisor Dean Preston, one of several Transportation Authority board members, at the hearing Tuesday expressed frustration with the state commission.  

“We basically privatized and deregulated transportation, and this is what we get: clogged street, no accountability, no data,” he said. “This is a joke. I mean, a cruel joke in terms of data integrity.” 

Read more about the ride-hailing industry and the record of state regulators in our ongoing series, “Ride Hailing’s Dark Data.”

The post Local Planners Say State Failed to Track Safety Incidents on Uber and Lyft appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

In a recent Public Press poll to gauge residents’ opinion of the city’s thorniest issues, San Franciscans made their top concerns crystal clear: housing affordability, homelessness and the cleanliness of city streets.  

More than 200 people shared opinions with the Public Press when asked to identify the most pressing concerns in their supervisorial districts. Most participants completed the brief survey online early this fall, with about 15% replying in person to surveyors seeking diverse respondents in supervisorial districts with competitive races. A small number of respondents said they worked in the city but lived elsewhere. 

While concerns varied by district, housing, homelessness and street hygiene emerged as key issues. Aggregated concerns about different kinds of crime came in as a close fourth. City residents were also able to weigh in on these thorny matters in the Nov. 8 general election. 

Results are still rolling in that could decide several close contests. Based on the latest vote tally from the Department of Elections: 

• Neither of two competing efforts to streamline San Francisco’s building permitting process with stated goals of building more affordable housing has secured 50% of the vote. After hanging on for several days by a razor thin margin, over the weekend Proposition D drifted further away from victory, while E has lost.  
• Proposition M, a progressive empty homes tax meant to give owners incentive to rent out vacant units, passed and stands with almost 54% “yes” votes.  
• Proposition C’s proposed increased oversight of the city’s Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing was also voted into law.  
• Proposition B, which overturns a decision made by voters in 2020 to create a new Department of Sanitation and Streets, received strong support with about 75% “yes” votes, returning street-cleaning duties to the Department of Public Works.  
• Voters seem to have upheld Mayor London Breed’s choice for District Attorney in a closely-watched race after months of debates on the role of the DA in addressing crime. Brooke Jenkins declared victory in the race Nov. 9, though her closest challenger John Hamasaki has yet to concede.  

With the potential failure of both D and E, survey respondents’ concerns regarding the new construction of affordable housing may not see much progress as a result of this election. Many respondents noted the lack of affordable housing as a major concern, oftentimes linking the housing crisis with high costs of living and homelessness. 

In August, the California Department of Housing and Community Development announced an investigation into housing policies and practices in San Francisco to understand why the city’s permitting process is so lengthy. It is the first investigation of its kind in the state.  

Gov. Gavin Newsom also reported on Nov. 3 that he is pausing the distribution of $1 billion in funds meant to address the homelessness crisis. Money from the Homelessness Housing, Assistance and Prevention grant program was meant to go to jurisdictions across the state, but Newsom said he will hold onto funds until local leaders meet up in mid-November to identify more aggressive strategies to reduce homelessness. 

The confusion of having two similarly worded competing measures may have undermined the ability for either to pass.  

Jason McDaniel, associate professor in the department of political science at San Francisco State University, said he believes the dueling measures are a sign of polarization and dysfunction in the relationship between the Board of Supervisors and Breed. 

“There’s not a lot of trust, there’s not a lot of signs of working together,” he said. “And so, when you see these dueling kinds of ballot measures, what you’re seeing is they don’t feel like they can govern and legislate — board and mayor together — on important decisions on housing policy.” 

More broadly, McDaniel said he sees two competing ideologies in the city, noting their presence in mobilizing around the DA’s race as well as various housing measures. 

“We have two kind of highly organized and competitive political factions in the city,” he said. These two factions are often referred to as progressives and moderate-liberals, though McDaniel “doesn’t love these terms.” As he sees it, the progressive faction is further left and usually positions itself in opposition to policies of political leaders such as Breed and state Sen. Scott Wiener. The moderate-liberal faction “mostly descends from the Willie Brown coalition, inherited by Gavin Newsom and Ed Lee.” 

These two groups are also “really good at making connections with voters — they care about, they listen to voters, they want to represent them.” In this way, McDaniel said, voter concerns are an important driving factor in what issues are central to elections.  

For voters, filling out ballots can already be time consuming even without the complexity of competing ballot measures.  

Survey respondent James Aldrich, who listed bike and pedestrian safety as his main concern, said “I think of myself as politically progressive, and yet, it’s pretty confusing when you try to figure out what is the solution” to some of the city’s biggest issues, such as the housing crisis.  

Transportation Priorities

Another hot issue for survey respondents that appeared on the ballot was the question of closed streets and car access. Much like the contentious split on the two affordable housing measures, voters and survey respondents had strong opinions regarding the potential re-opening of streets such as John F. Kennedy Drive and the Great Highway.  

Proposition J, which affirms the Board of Supervisors’ decision to close a portion of JFK Drive permanently to cars, passed. Its counterpart, Proposition I, which would have overturned a previous Board of Supervisors’ decision and reversed the city’s eventual closure of a portion of the Great Highway, was trailing by close to 30%.  

Richard Rothman, a native San Francisco resident who lives in District 1 and has followed local issues for several years sees the outcome of Propositions I, J, and L as reflective of a division between the eastern and western parts of the city. “I’ve never seen the city so divided,” he said. “Nobody wants to sit down and compromise; it’s either my way or no way.”   

Transportation concerns weren’t limited to closed streets. For survey respondents, concerns around transportation revealed a vast array of perspectives regarding whose transit needs should be centered in city policy — pedestrians, bikers, drivers, seniors, people with disabilities and various combinations of those groups. 

Some respondents called for improved Muni service and better traffic control. After a $400 million Muni bond failed in June, elected officials were hoping a different ballot measure could help tackle some of the city’s public transit woes.  

Proposition L, a proposed extension to San Francisco’s existing 0.5% sales tax, is the only measure on the ballot requiring a two-thirds affirmative vote to pass and currently stands at 71% “yes.” If approved, L would fund programs ranging from basic transit maintenance to large-scale transportation projects, as well as increased paratransit services and pedestrian and bike safety measures.  

The post SF Residents’ Concerns Were All Over Ballot. What Did Voters Say? appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Proposition N would give the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department control of the Music Concourse Garage in Golden Gate Park. The 800-space parking garage is managed by a nonprofit created by a ballot measure in 1998 that raised private donations to help finance the facility. Supporters of Proposition N cite a series of financial scandals and mismanagement of the garage and say the parking lot is underutilized because parking rates are set too high. They want to amend the earlier ballot measure to give control of the facility to Rec and Park.

This measure requires more than 50% affirmative votes to pass.

Proposition N would overturn part of a ballot measure (then-Proposition J) passed by voters in June 1998 that placed construction of the Music Concourse Garage in Golden Gate Park in the hands of a nonprofit called the Golden Gate Park Concourse Authority.

The authority took over management of the garage from the Music Concourse Community Partnership, another nonprofit created to raise tax deductible donations to build the 800-space garage. Organizers raised $36 million of the $55 million needed to build the garage. Ongoing profits from the garage were supposed to pay off loans taken out to cover the balance.

The original measure also called for any excess parking funds to be returned to the operation, maintenance, improvement or enhancement of Golden Gate Park. No such funds have been distributed.

In 2008, a $4 million embezzlement scandal by a former chief financial officer rocked the original fundraising nonprofit. Since then, the concourse authority has struggled to pay rent to the city.

Critics of the nonprofit said that the parking spaces are overpriced, with many of the 800 parking spaces often going unused. They also criticize the authority for not providing discounts to park employees who work in the De Young Museum, California Academy of Sciences and other attractions near the garage.

No opponents to the measure have placed a counter argument for maintaining the current system in the official ballot pamphlet.

Mayor London Breed issued the “Official Proponent Argument.” She said that the passage of Proposition N would allow the city “to spend public dollars on the garage, which creates flexibility over the management and parking rates.” She said the change would make it possible for the city to offer discounts to low-income and disabled visitors who drive to the park. The mayor said that “flexible pricing” will also allow the city to pay down the debt incurred from building the garage. 

The post Proposition N — Golden Gate Park Underground Parking Facility; Golden Gate Park Concourse Authority appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Proposition L is a proposed extension of the city’s current 0.5% sales tax until 2053 to help fund public transportation projects. The measure also allows the city to issue up to $1.91 billion in bonds to be repaid with proceeds from the tax, which the city controller estimated will generate $100 million per year in its early years, increasing to about $236 million by 2052. Revenue from the tax would be used to fund the 2022 Transportation Expenditure Plan, which includes a variety of programs focused on basic transit maintenance, major transportation improvements, paratransit services, congestion reduction, pedestrian and bike safety, and community-based equity planning. This measure requires a two-thirds majority vote to pass.

San Franciscans first voted to approve this tax in 1989 and elected to extend it once again in 2003. The current tax isn’t set to expire until 2034. However, advocates say that passing the tax now will unlock the potential to qualify for billions in matching funds in state and federal grants, and note that all but one of the major capital projects under the current plan have been completed.

Local transportation agencies like San Francisco’s Municipal Transportation Agency and Bay Area Rapid Transit have struggled since the start of the pandemic with decreased ridership and thus funding. A $400 million Muni bond measure narrowly failed in June. Supporters of Proposition L say the proposed improvements funded by the measure will be a key part of luring back riders, especially in the absence of other investments.

Supporters include Mayor London Breed, District 8 Supervisor and Chair of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority Rafael Mandelman, the San Francisco Democratic Party, San Francisco Transit Riders, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, Walk San Francisco, Senior and Disability Action, the Sierra Club, the San Francisco Labor Council and others.

Opponents of the measure include Larry Marso, who also opposed the failed June Muni bond, and the Coalition for San Francisco Neighborhoods. They argue that the current tax will not expire for another 10 years and that San Francisco County Transportation Authority’s spending is out of control. Opponents also say that the amount of federal funding available is “false marketing” because it does not adjust for inflation. Instead, they are pushing to “retool” the transit system for reduced commutes in the current climate with increased work-from-home.

The process for creating the new transit plan included six months of public advisory committee meetings composed of neighborhood, business, advocacy and community representatives, in addition to partnerships with community-based organizations to conduct outreach with communities of color, low-income households and monolingual communities. More detailed aspects of the 2022 Expenditure Plan include:

• Muni reliability and efficiency improvements through transit-only lanes and other street design changes
• Improving Muni and BART core capacity through more frequent and longer trains, upgrades to control systems
• Extending Caltrain downtown and other Caltrain system capacity investments, which may be used in future light-speed rail services
• Routine maintenance and rehabilitation on Muni, BART, Caltrain and ferry transit
• Addition of zero-emission vehicles and other measures to reduce the impacts of climate change
• Creation of a Bayview Caltrain station and Mission Bay Ferry landing
• Investments in paratransit for seniors and people with disabilities
• Street resurfacing and maintenance
• Pedestrian and bicycle facilities maintenance
• Improvements to traffic signs and signals
• Investments in safe streets, such as curb ramps and tree planting
• Creation of express bus lanes on freeways and other changes to encourage carpooling
• Other measures to increase freeway safety and to repair the harm caused by former freeway and street projects
• Creating and implementing neighborhood and equity priority transportation plans

The post Proposition L — Sales Tax for Transportation Projects appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Proposition J is primarily designed to counter another measure on the ballot — Proposition I — which would overturn a Board of Supervisors ordinance passed in April 2022 closing off John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park to motorized vehicles. It requires more than 50% affirmative votes to pass.

Proposition J would add those changes to the park code. The goal is to shift park access away from car traffic and toward pedestrian and bicycle use.

The measure would also protect the weekend closure of the Great Highway along Ocean Beach and plans to turn part of that roadway between Sloat and Skyline boulevards into nature trails and parking. City planners say that erosion from sea level rise makes the maintenance of the entire Great Highway unfeasible in the long term. Changes to the Great Highway and wastewater treatment facilities are outlined in the Ocean Beach Climate Adaptation Project.

The Yes on J campaign claims that public use of the park has increased by 35% since the closure of JFK and the Great Highway and that 70% of people surveyed support the closure. No details were given on how the survey was conducted. They also cite traffic data that found JFK Drive was among the top 13% of most dangerous San Francisco streets when it was open to car traffic. The campaign also said that the city has added 29 new ADA parking spaces behind the Music Bandshell, exceeding the number of spaces that were eliminated when JFK Drive was turned into the JFK Promenade.

A paid ballot statement from the Prop. J Hurts Seniors campaign asserts that “without access to JFK Drive, it is impossible for many seniors to visit Golden Gate Park, its museums and attractions,” and adding that “many seniors do not have access to reliable public transit and cannot walk long distances and rely on cars to get around.”

Proposition J would pass on a simple majority vote. The Board of Supervisors can amend the ordinance by a majority vote. If Proposition J passes with more votes than Proposition I. then the latter would have no legal effect.

The post Proposition J — Recreational Use of JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

Proposition I would overturn an ordinance that has closed John F. Kennedy Drive in Golden Gate Park to most private motor vehicles seven days a week and closed the Great Highway along Ocean Beach to such traffic on weekends and holidays. The city would be forbidden from proceeding with plans to eventually close the Great Highway between Sloat and Skyline boulevards — a stretch that is subject to coastal erosion. This measure requires more than 50% affirmative votes to pass.

This ballot measure would amend the park code to override a Board of Supervisors decision from May 2022 that turned JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park into the JFK Promenade and closed the Great Highway on weekends.

JFK Drive between Kezar Drive and the Great Highway was closed to motor vehicles seven days a week in April 2020. The then-temporary plan was to create “social distancing” space for people to walk, run, jog or bicycle during the COVID-19 pandemic. A similar section of the Great Highway at Ocean Beach was closed for the same purposes on weekends and holidays.

Under Proposition I, JFK Drive would be completely open on weekdays, but still closed to private cars on weekends from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. between April and September and on holidays. The Great Highway would be open to vehicle traffic seven days a week, except for special city approved events.

Proposition I would also forbid the city from moving forward with a plan to eventually close the Great Highway between Sloat Boulevard and Skyline Boulevard to private vehicles. Under the current plan, traffic would be diverted to the other side of the San Francisco Zoo along Skyline and Sloat boulevards. The change is part of a larger effort called the Ocean Beach Climate Adaptation Project. Work could begin as soon as late 2023 and last four years. 

The Great Highway is subject to erosion due to sea level rise, and city planners believe it is only a matter of time before it will be impossible to maintain the entire roadway for use by motor vehicles. Instead, the area would be turned into a series of nature paths and a parking lot.

The idea is similar to what was done with a dangerous and erosion-prone section of Highway 1 in San Mateo County called the Devil’s Side, which was closed upon completion of the Tom Lantos Tunnel, which routes traffic through San Bruno Mountain. The Devil’s Slide section remains open to pedestrians and bicycles, but no major repair work is done on the roadbed, which is eventually expected to fall into the ocean.

The San Francisco Controller’s Office estimates that maintaining the entire Great Highway would cost at least $80 million over the next 20 years.

Proposition I would also take JFK Drive and the Great Highway out of the jurisdiction of the Recreation and Parks Department and place the roadways under the purview of the Department of Public Works, which manages most of the city’s roadways.

Supporters of Proposition I, including disability rights advocate Howard Chabner, argued that closing JFK Drive and the Great Highway “hurts people with disabilities, seniors and families” by limiting their access to areas in the park. Supporters also contend that Proposition I will “move cars back to major roadways and off local streets that aren’t designed for high volume traffic.”

In a paid ballot argument, the group Seniors for Inclusion said that nearly 1,000 free parking spaces and a dozen ADA parking spaces near major attractions such as the Conservatory of Flowers, DeYoung Museum and California Academy of Sciences can no longer be accessed. 

Opponents of Proposition I include Supervisors Matt Dorsey, Gordon Mar, Merna Melgar, Dean Preson and Hilary Ronen. Supervisor Ronen said the decision to close JFK Drive was “a consensus introduced by Mayor London Breed and passed by seven board members.” She believes it provides “a protected, safe open space for recreational use.” Ronen is especially critical of the section of Proposition I that would disrupt the Ocean Beach Climate Adaptation Project, which includes the eventual closure of part of the Great Highway, but she said it would also force a halt to plans to “protect the Westside’s Sewage Treatment facilities that are at risk of falling into the sea.”  

Proposition I prompted some members of the Board of Supervisors to put Proposition J on the ballot, which would make the changes a permanent part of the park code.

If Proposition I passes, the board may later amend the ordinance by a two-thirds vote, but only if the amendments are either consistent with the measure’s purposes or required by a court. If Proposition I passes with more votes than Proposition J, then Proposition J would have no legal effect.

The post Proposition I — Vehicles on JFK Drive in Golden Gate Park and the Great Highway appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

In a previously unreported vote last month, the commission issued a decision requiring that all ride-hailing firms train drivers to avoid sexual assault and harassment, adopt procedures for investigating complaints and use uniform terminology in their annual reports to the agency so it can accurately monitor them.

But the commission softened its initial proposal by dropping a requirement that the companies inform victims they could “opt in” to speak with its investigators. Although the agency had said the measure would help it ensure firms properly respond to assault claims, it instead decided the cases would be better handled by company investigators once they receive appropriate training.

The commission hailed the new rules as “a necessary milestone” in its “ongoing commitment to ensuring the safety” of transportation network companies, as the firms are known, and a signal to assault victims that their claims will receive “the necessary consideration and sensitivity that respects their rights.”

In comments before the vote on June 23, 2022, commissioners said they sought to balance holding the industry accountable and protecting victim privacy.

“It’s important that we have sufficient information to understand what’s happening and how best to explore ways to prevent these incidents, protect victims, and also ensure their confidentiality,” Commissioner Darcie Houck said.

Commissioner Clifford Rechtschaffen said the decision addressed “an extraordinarily serious and sensitive set of issues involving assault. We really need to tread very, very carefully, and I think this decision does that.” 

Local officials said the move was a welcome improvement in how the agency addresses a longstanding risk on rides.

“The CPUC’s action to standardize how Uber and Lyft are supposed to protect passengers from sexual assault and harassment is way overdue,” Rafael Mandelman, a San Francisco supervisor and chair of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, said in an email. “I hope this is a sign that the state is prepared to take these issues more seriously, sooner rather than later.”

Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, who sued Uber over what he alleged were its false safety claims in 2014 when he was San Francisco’s district attorney, said in an email: “This is a positive step. I hope that both the Commission and rideshare companies work collaboratively to improve public safety.”

Terrie Prosper, the commission’s director of news and outreach, did not respond to questions about the decision. 

The commission is California’s primary regulator of ride-hailing firms and the state’s only agency that collects comprehensive safety data on the industry. Uber and Lyft represent 99.9 percent of the state’s ride-hailing business.

The agency legalized ride-hailing in California in 2013 and other states followed suit. Within months, there were media reports of alleged assaults around the country.

But the commission did not specifically require that firms include sexual assaults and harassment complaints in their mandatory annual reports to the agency before 2017, according to documents released to the San Francisco Public Press under the state public records act.

Moreover, it failed to require that they use consistent definitions of assaults and harassment, which resulted in unreliable data. The problem was revealed only in October 2021, after the Public Press obtained a partially redacted 2020 annual report. The agency has not released other annual reports.

Company representatives have said they submitted all required information and that safety is a top priority. They say less than 1% of their rides have any safety issues.

Numerous passengers have sued Uber and Lyft alleging the companies failed to prevent and investigate assaults. The firms routinely deny the claims, and settlements are usually confidential. Last week, eight women and two men sued Uber in San Francisco Superior Court, alleging they were attacked by Uber drivers within the last three years. Navideh Forghani, an Uber spokesperson, declined by email to comment on the two lawsuits.  

Meanwhile, the companies have released their own studies using definitions they developed with experts. Uber’s 2019 “U.S. Safety Report” listed 5,981 alleged incidents of sexual assault in 2017 and 2018 nationally. It did not break out incidents by state, but Uber later said 1,243 occurred in California.

Last month, Uber published a second study, reporting 3,824 alleged incidents in 2019 and 2020 nationally.

In its “Community Safety Report,” published in 2021, Lyft acknowledged 4,158 alleged sexual assaults nationally, in 2017, 2018 and 2019. It also did not include state tallies.

Both companies said in emails that they supported the commission’s requirement that they use a uniform system of definitions, or “taxonomy,” in reporting assaults to the agency.

Under the new rules, sexual assault is defined as the touching, or attempted touching, of sexual body parts of a driver or passenger against their will. This includes victims who are unconscious at the time. Several passengers have claimed in lawsuits that they were assaulted after passing out in the back seat.

Sexual harassment is defined as the “unwelcome visual, verbal, nonverbal, or physical conduct” based on sex, directed at a passenger or driver, such as inappropriate personal questions, remarks about appearance and “flirting.”

The agency said it based the definitions on state criminal and civil law and the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The commission rejected definitions that Uber and Lyft developed after consulting with experts. The agency also rejected Uber’s suggestion that it only report incidents in which it had deactivated the driver, saying this would obscure a true tally of assault claims.

Uber and Lyft told the commission that as of at least 2019 they had begun training drivers on avoiding sexual assault with assistance from the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), which describes itself as “the nation’s largest anti-sexual violence organization.”

But now the commission is mandating that all ride-hailing firms develop a program in consultation with a recognized expert to annually train drivers using examples of proscribed acts. It must cover harassment based on gender identity and expression, as required under California law.

Firms are required to provide a copy of their policies for preventing sexual assaults and harassment to drivers and passengers. They must develop an investigation manual that requires a timely response to assault claims and documentation. And they must consult experts to establish investigator qualifications, training and procedures for “trauma informed” investigations.

The companies said they had added many safety features over the years, as well as sexual misconduct education for drivers. But neither responded to emailed questions about whether they should have acted earlier in requiring more rigorous training for drivers and investigators.

The agency emphasized that the new rules are “interim” and that firms must update their programs “as necessary” after an industry-wide evaluation by experts.

Genevieve Shiroma, the commissioner who wrote the decision, said before the vote, “This is crucial work and we will continue our work in this area.”

This article was produced in partnership with the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. Support was also provided by the Fund for Investigative Journalism. See previous stories at sfpublicpress.org/series/ride-hailings-dark-data. Contact Seth Rosenfeld at srosenfeld@sfpublicpress.org.

The post Uber, Lyft Must Adopt Measures to Prevent Sexual Assaults, California Regulator Rules appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

The California Public Utilities Commission confirmed in an unpublicized ruling that it had let the ride-hailing giants use varying definitions of sexual assault and harassment in their mandatory reports to the agency since at least 2017.

According to the ruling, the varying definitions “could impact the total number and types of incidents reported in their annual reports.”

That means the agency — the industry’s primary regulator in California — may not know how many assaults are alleged to have happened and whether the companies investigated each one and suspended culpable drivers.  

Terrie Prosper, the commission’s spokeswoman, did not reply to questions sent by email about the data reporting problem, saying only that it “will be addressed by the Commission.”

The breakdown in regulatory oversight was hidden for years because of extraordinary secrecy the commission conferred on the companies’ annual safety reports, withholding them not only from the public and the media but also from other state and local officials. 

The agency is only now beginning a process to develop uniform “taxonomies,” or classifications, to ensure ride-hailing firms consistently report assault complaints. 

“The need for uniform sexual assault and sexual harassment taxonomies has been a growing concern for the commission,” said the Dec. 9, 2021, ruling by commissioner Genevieve Shiroma, who is overseeing the proceeding for the agency.

Unlike taxis, which are regulated locally, ride-hailing is governed by the commission. It is the only agency that collects comprehensive safety data about their operations across the state, requiring each firm to file annual reports that consist of spreadsheets with entries on each complaint.   

The commission’s faulty collection of assault data came to light last October, after the Public Press obtained data from the 2020 annual safety filings for Uber and Lyft under the California Public Records Act. 

It was the first public disclosure of any annual ride-hailing safety reports, and it revealed that the firms’ spreadsheets had widely varying numbers. Lyft included nearly 12 times the number of assault records that the much larger Uber did for the same one-year period ending Sept. 1, 2020.

As the Public Press reported at the time, a Lyft spokeswoman commented that “It’s impossible to use these reports to draw accurate comparisons between Uber and Lyft.” She added, “Instead, what this data reveals is two companies making very different choices about definitions and how they categorize and share data about incidents.” 

Two days after releasing the reports, the commission sent letters to Uber and Lyft ordering them to provide all definitions of assaults used in their reports for the last five years.

The company responses confirmed the problem, according to the commission ruling. Neither the commission nor the firms would release copies of those replies.

But according to the ruling, the agency found that for its 2017, 2018 and 2019 annual reports to the commission, “Uber did not provide a definition of assault or harassments.” And when Uber published its own “U.S. Safety Report” in 2019 the firm “adopted a more expansive approach to identifying sexual assault and sexual harassment claims,” it said. 

That report listed 5,981 alleged incidents of sexual assault and harassment in 2017 and 2018 nationally. It did not show the number by state, but Uber later told the commission that 1,243 — or 21 percent — were in California.

Uber based the definitions for its “U.S. Safety Report” on information from “Helping Industries to Classify Reports of Sexual Harassment, Sexual Misconduct, and Sexual Assault,” a study by the National Sexual Violence Resource Center and the Urban Institute, the ruling said.

Lyft, by contrast, used its own “internally defined incidents of assault and harassment” for its reports to the agency for 2017 to 2019, the ruling said. But sometime prior to June 2019 Lyft used another definition from the U.S. Department of Justice. Then, in June 2019, Lyft began using definitions developed by RALIANCE, a national sexual violence prevention organization, the ruling said.  

Lyft also used the RALIANCE taxonomy for the “Community Safety Report” it published in 2021, which acknowledged 4,158 alleged sexual assaults nationally, including 360 alleged rapes, related to rides in 2017, 2018 and 2019. It did not state the number in California.

Despite these shifting definitions, the companies say they gave the commission all required data. 

Andrew Hasbun, Uber’s head of safety communications, said in an email, “In regards to the annual reports, we provided the CPUC with the information they requested.”

Ashley Adams, senior communications manager at Lyft, said, “We believe we’ve accurately reported the information we were asked to provide.”

The inconsistent reporting apparently stems from the agency’s unclear instructions to the firms, what Adams previously called “incredibly broad and imprecise” terms open to broad interpretation.  

Susan B. Sorenson, a professor of social policy at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied the epidemiology and prevention of sexual assault, commenting on the Public Press’ findings last fall, said the commission had not followed standard practice of using clear definitions necessary for gathering reliable data. She also questioned whether the agency possessed flawed data for years and “apparently didn’t notice.”

Lorena Gonzalez, then-chair of the state Assembly’s Appropriations Committee, said at the time, “I could get my 10-year-old to create a Google doc to better track this than what’s happening.” (Gonzalez left the Assembly earlier this month to become leader of the California Labor Federation.)

Prosper, the commission spokeswoman, did not reply to an email asking if the agency ever had consulted experts on the collection of assault data. 

In the ruling, Shiroma agreed that “it will be beneficial to adopt standardized taxonomies for sexual assault and sexual harassment.” She said the commission would review the issue and directed interested parties to file opening comments on the matter by Jan. 21.

The agency is also considering releasing all annual ride-hailing safety reports for 2014 to 2019, although it would still let the firms keep trade secret and personal information confidential. Opening comments are due Feb. 11.

The commission’s Consumer Protection and Enforcement Division and Uber have jointly filed a motion calling for the agency to order the release of these records. The motion is part of a settlement of the agency’s regulatory action against Uber for refusing to turn over information concerning sexual assaults noted in its “U.S. Safety Report.” 

Under the settlement, Uber also agreed to pay a $150,000 fine, along with $9 million to support safety measures. As much as $4 million will go toward hiring “industry experts” to address physical and sexual violence in the passenger carrier industry like ride-hailing cars, limousines and chartered buses, including the development of best practices for handling complaints.

Lyft, however, is opposing the motion to release the annual reports, which was hammered out by Uber and the consumer unit in private negotiations. In a Jan. 18 filing, the firm contended that the motion had a “suspect legal standing,” “murky origins” and “collusive underpinnings.” Lyft said the matter should instead be addressed through the commission’s regular rule-making process, which Adams called “broader and more inclusive.”

 Prosper did not respond to a request for comment on Lyft’s filing, which was first reported by Bloomberg Law. Uber’s Hasbun declined to comment.

The ride-hailing rivals say that more than 99 percent of their rides end without safety issues, and that they have added many security features to their apps. Uber, for example, has a feature called “share status,” which lets riders send their location to friends or family. Lyft has a similar option.

An earlier investigation by the Public Press found that the commission made the annual reports confidential by adding a one-sentence footnote to the 2013 regulations that legalized ride-hailing in California, without prior public discussion, amid what the state Fair Political Practices Commission later found to be illegal industry lobbying. 

For more coverage on this topic, see the whole series, Ride Hailing’s Dark Data.

This story was produced in partnership with the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. Support was also provided by the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

UPDATE 2/1/2022:

Due to an editing error, a previous version of this article omitted a paragraph describing the methodology used in Uber’s “U.S. Safety Report.”

Uber declined to comment prior to publication of this story, but afterward provided additional information about its taxonomy, or system for classifying and reporting sexual assaults. Hasbun emailed material stating that Uber funded the 2018 study it undertook with National Sexual Violence Resource Center and the Urban Institute to develop the taxonomy used for its 2019 published safety report. Afterward Uber and NSVRC, which is part of RALIANCE, made the taxonomy available as a public resource, hailing it as a benchmark in corporate accountability.  

Lyft’s Adams said in an email that Lyft used the same taxonomy for its 2021 published report.

One question that may arise before the commission is whether it will adopt this taxonomy for the mandatory reports that each ride-hailing firm must submit to it annually, or consider other methods of categorizing and reporting assaults.

The post Utilities Agency Admits More Problems in Tracking Ride-Hailing Assaults appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

A leading researcher on sexual assault added that the commission’s methodology was out of line with accepted practice and that it suggested a “lack of concern” about monitoring the incidents.

The agency, meanwhile, issued a proposal under which it would hire “industry experts” to review its practices for the mandatory company reports on sexual assaults and other violent incidents.  

The San Francisco Public Press reported Oct. 20 that the commission had failed to collect consistent data from the ride-hailing giants on complaints about drivers. Instead, the agency permitted the firms to interpret the reporting requirements differently, resulting in widely varying numbers and raising questions about the data’s reliability.

Each ride-hailing firm must report to the agency on drivers suspended or deactivated for allegations of assaults, threats and harassment on its rides. The most recent reports show that Lyft entered 18,178 records — nearly 12 times the number that its much larger rival Uber did — during the same one-year period ending Sept. 1, 2020.

Uber reported that it suspended or deactivated 1,573 drivers for those allegations during that time.

“It is the CPUC’s responsibility to ask for data in a way that’s clear and consistent so that they’re not being given these kind of wild inconsistencies,” said Lorena Gonzalez, chair of the state Assembly’s Appropriations Committee, in an interview with the Public Press about its findings. “This is a clear example of the CPUC really punting their responsibility.”

Rafael Mandelman, a San Francisco city supervisor and chairman of the County Transportation Authority, said in an email in response to the findings, “The CPUC has failed to carry out its mandate to monitor the public safety impacts of Uber and Lyft’s hostile takeover of the taxi industry. These companies have operated effectively unregulated for over a decade with no clear data on assault, harassment or collisions.”

He added, “Our state leaders need to step up and make significant structural changes to the CPUC’s relationship with these companies or allow local governments to implement regulatory plans that meet the needs of our communities.”

Unlike taxis, which are regulated locally, ride-hailing is regulated by the commission. It is the only agency that collects comprehensive safety data about the companies’ operations across the state.

California in 2013 became the first state in the nation to legalize ride-hailing, and since then has required each firm to submit annual reports on safety complaints. But under an extraordinary grant of secrecy to the industry — contained in a one-sentence footnote to the regulations — the commission withheld the data. The agency repealed the footnote last year, but only for upcoming reports.

The 2020 assault data was released to the Public Press under the California Public Records Act, the first time any of the annual reports have been open to outside scrutiny.

‘Definition issue’

Two days after releasing the reports, the commission sent letters to Uber and Lyft ordering them to provide all definitions of assaults and other misconduct used in their reports for the last five years.

Terrie Prosper, the commission’s spokeswoman, acknowledged the problem with the reports from the firms, formally known as transportation network companies and referred to as TNCs. “In the annual report information provided to you, each TNC defines that data they have provided to the CPUC,” she said in an email. “The CPUC is aware of this definition issue and may consider it as the CPUC addresses the reports.”

Prosper did not comment directly on the criticism of the commission’s collection of data.

The Public Press cited interviews and previously confidential reports in revealing the commission’s inconsistent data. Ashley Adams, a Lyft spokeswoman, said in one email, “It’s impossible to use these reports to draw accurate comparisons between Uber and Lyft.” She added, “Instead, what this data reveals is two companies making very different choices about definitions and how they categorize and share data about incidents.” 

Adams said that the commission’s instructions to the firms included “incredibly broad and imprecise” terms that were open to wide interpretation.

Lyft included all records concerning each complaint, meaning there were redundant entries, as well as complaints for which drivers were not suspended or deactivated, she said in an interview.

As a result, she said, the firm had fewer alleged incidents than it might seem based on the number of entries in its report to the commission. She declined to say how many individual incidents, suspensions and deactivations there actually were.

Andrew Hasbun, head of safety communications at Uber, declined to comment on Lyft’s report, but said in an email that Uber by contrast submitted the actual number of drivers suspended or deactivated. He later emailed that “any characterization that Uber under-reported is simply not accurate.”

Expert faults methodology

The agency requires each firm to report the complaints on a spreadsheet template titled, “Assaults & Harassments — TNC drivers suspended or deactivated for assaulting, threatening, or harassing a passenger or any member of the public while providing TNC services.”

For the 2020 reports, the commission defined those terms by providing a list of no fewer than 48 examples of conduct that the firms must report within a single field on the spreadsheet. They vary widely from physical and sexual assault, to homophobic, racist and sexist comments, to generally making a passenger “uncomfortable.”

Susan B. Sorenson, a professor of social policy at the University of Pennsylvania who has studied the epidemiology and prevention of sexual assault, said in an interview that the research community established a generation ago the need for clear definitions to gather reliable data. Commenting on the Public Press’ findings, she expressed surprise that the agency had not followed standard practice for monitoring the incidence of assaults.

“It speaks to an apparent lack of concern,” said Sorenson, who has served in many advisory roles and was a member of the National Academy of Sciences’ Panel on Research on Violence Against Women. “Particularly that they had these reports for five years and apparently didn’t notice. It’s very clear that the CPUC needs to implement clear definitions.”

Assemblywoman Gonzalez said bluntly, “I could get my 10-year-old to create a Google doc to better track this than what’s happening. It’s not that complicated.” 

She added, “It makes no sense to me that they kind of threw out these parameters, and of course they got these wildly different reports. And we still don’t have all the information that we would need as legislators, as the general public, to determine whether or not this is even a safe option for riders or drivers.

The commission redacted the 2020 reports released to the Public Press to protect what it said was personal privacy and sensitive business information.

Gonzalez said that the agency’s secrecy about the safety reports over the years may have contributed to its collection of inconsistent data. It even refused to share them with other government agencies looking for patterns that could help improve safety.

“First of all, what good is the data if it’s not public?” she said. “And of course, without sharing it, then we don’t know that the two main companies are providing data in a completely different way. So, it has to be more clear. I think that’s something that we have to go back and insist.”

Sorenson questioned whether the agency, in having kept the reports confidential, was more concerned with protecting itself from public review than protecting passengers. 

Assaults on Uber and Lyft rides — even if they happen on a tiny fraction of overall trips — have been a national concern since the industry began. Hundreds of civil lawsuits accusing the firms and their drivers of sexual assault and negligence have been filed across the country. Some drivers have been criminally prosecuted.

Under public pressure, the companies have separately published their own safety reports. Lyft on Oct. 21 released its long-awaited “Community Safety Report,” saying that in 2017, 2018 and 2019 it had received accounts of 4,158 sexual assaults, 10 fatal physical assaults and 105 fatal accidents in relation to its service throughout the United States.

In 2019 Uber released a “US Safety Report” saying that in 2017 and 2018 it received 5,981 accounts of sexual assault, 19 fatal physical assaults and 107 people killed in vehicular accidents nationally.

Those corporate publications do not disclose the number of incidents by state or city. They do not cover as many kinds of incidents as the mandatory state reports do. And they are not submitted under penalty of perjury, as those reports are.

According to the proposal announced Oct. 29, the commission would address how the industry should best report to it on violent incidents during rides. It would also consider releasing redacted versions of all ride-hailing safety reports filed with the agency from 2014 to 2020.

The proposal is part of a settlement that would require Uber to pay a $150,000 fine and $9 million to support various safety measures. The settlement would resolve a 2020 recommendation from an agency judge that Uber pay a $59 million fine for refusing to provide information concerning the sexual assaults noted in its “US Safety Report.” The commission is scheduled to vote on it on Dec. 2.

The firms say that well more than 99 percent of rides ended without any safety issues, and that they have added many security features to their apps. Uber, for example, provides a feature called “share status,” which lets riders send their location to friends or family. Lyft has a similar option.

“We shouldn’t leave it up to the PR machines of Uber and Lyft to be releasing public data,” said Gonzalez. “And so, as terrible as Lyft’s report was just recently, the public report, we have no way of evaluating whether that’s the full story.”

This story was produced in partnership with the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. Support was also provided by the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

The post Officials Demand Reform on Uber, Lyft Assault Reports appeared first on San Francisco Public Press.

The California Public Utilities Commission is required to collect the information from the firms annually to fulfill its mission of ensuring that their rides are safe. But previously confidential filings and recent interviews show that the agency has permitted the companies to use very different interpretations of the reporting requirements, raising questions about the data’s reliability.

The commission received the 2020 safety reports more than a year ago. But it was not until Sept. 22 — two days after the agency released them to the Public Press and the first time it has made them public — that it sent letters to Uber and Lyft ordering the firms to provide “all definitions” of assaults and other misconduct used in their submissions for the last five years.

Terrie Prosper, the commission’s director of news and outreach, did not respond to specific questions about the data discrepancies or the letters, but in an email she acknowledged the issue.

“In the annual report information provided to you, each TNC defines that data they have provided to the CPUC,” she said, referring to ride-hailing firms, known also as transportation network companies. “The CPUC is aware of this definition issue and may consider it as the CPUC addresses the reports.”

Rebecca Ruff, an attorney with the agency’s legal department, said in an Oct. 19 letter that it was withholding records on the queries to Lyft and Uber because they were confidential “investigation records.”

The commission is California’s primary regulator of ride-hailing firms and the state’s only agency that collects comprehensive safety data on the industry.

In its report on drivers suspended or deactivated for allegations of assaults, threats and harassment on its rides, Lyft entered 18,178 records — nearly 12 times the number that its much larger rival Uber did — during the same one-year period, their reports to the commission show.

When asked about the disparity between its report and Uber’s, a Lyft representative insisted that the company’s report to the agency was accurate, but said it was not a tally of the actual number of drivers it suspended or deactivated for those offenses.

“It’s impossible to use these reports to draw accurate comparisons between Uber and Lyft,” Ashley Adams, a senior communications manager with Lyft, said in an email. “Instead, what this data reveals is two companies making very different choices about definitions and how they categorize and share data about incidents.”

In an interview, Adams called the commission’s definitions of assault “incredibly broad and imprecise” and open to widely varying interpretations by the companies.

Andrew Hasbun, head of safety communications at Uber, responded, “We aren’t able to speak to Lyft’s process or safety standard so there isn’t much we can say on some of the differences.” 

Uber, he said in the email, reported the actual number of drivers suspended or deactivated as a result of the alleged incidents.

In a subsequent email he added that “any characterization that Uber under-reported is simply not accurate.”

[Update 10/22/2021: The companies’ required reports to the commission are separate from the safety publications each has issued. Lyft on Oct. 21 released its long-awaited “Community Safety Report,” saying it had received reports of 4,158 sexual assaults on its platform in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Like the one Uber released in 2019, Lyft’s does not disclose the number of assaults by state. Neither report contains as much detail about the assaults or requires an attestation to their accuracy by a corporate official under penalty of perjury, as the mandatory California reports do.]

Firms say rides are safe

Both firms told the commission they investigated all the allegations in their mandatory 2020 reports, determined most were unfounded and permanently deactivated a much smaller number of drivers.

The firms told the Public Press that 99.9% of their rides ended without any safety issue, and that the well-being of riders and drivers was a top priority. They said they had added many safety features to their apps. Uber, for example, has “share status” that lets riders share their location with friends or family. Lyft has a similar option.

But the discrepancies between the reports that Uber and Lyft submitted to the commission raise troubling questions not only about the actual number of alleged assaults, threats and harassment incidents on their rides, but also about whether the agency’s collection of inconsistently reported safety data has undermined its job of protecting public safety.

Assaults on Uber and Lyft rides — even if they happen on a tiny fraction of overall trips — have been a national concern since the industry began. Hundreds of civil lawsuits accusing the firms and their drivers of sexual assault and negligence have been filed across the country. In some cases, drivers have been criminally prosecuted.

Loretta Lynch, who was president of the commission from 2000 to 2002, said in an interview that the agency needs uniformly reported company information to fulfill its safety mission, but it appeared from the timing of the letters to the firms that agency staff had been unaware of the data discrepancies until a reporter obtained the annual reports. “Reports get filed,” she said, “but who is reading them?”

Richard Clark, who served as the commission’s director of consumer protection and safety from 2000 to 2012, and then as one of its administrative law judges until 2014, said in an interview, “In terms of importance to the public safety, you can’t really know what’s going on out there on the street until you have consistent and accurate data across the industry.”

Prosper, the commission’s spokesperson, did not respond to an email asking whether the inconsistently reported information hindered the agency’s ability to ensure ride safety. 

A question of interpretation

The data discrepancy appears to stem from stark differences in the firms’ definitions of those offenses and in their methods for reporting to the agency, according to records and interviews.

It also appears to result from the commission’s sweeping and sometimes vague descriptions of assaults, threats and harassment, which jumble together a range of acts from physical and sexual assault, to homophobic, racist and sexist comments, to generally making a passenger “uncomfortable.”

Since the commission became the first agency in the nation to legalize ride-hailing in 2013, Uber and Lyft have boomed. The two rivals dominate ride-hailing in California, accepting a combined total of 277,250,720 rides in the one year covered by the reports. Lyft accepted 110,786,422 of those rides, or 40 percent, while Uber accepted 166,464,298, or 60 percent.

From the start, the agency has required the firms to file annual safety reports. But until now it has withheld them under an extraordinary grant of secrecy that frustrated local officials who said they needed the data for traffic planning and safety.

The 2020 reports were released to the Public Press after an eight-month effort under the California Public Records Act. The agency redacted them to protect privacy and proprietary company information.

Uber’s report

The two companies say they report the data differently. While Uber says it reports the number of individual drivers, Lyft says it reports all the records it has that in any way concern a case.

According to the newly released data, Uber said it suspended or deactivated a total of 1,573 drivers for allegations of assaults, threats or harassment.

Of these, the firm said it “waitlisted,” or temporarily suspended, 1,200 drivers, and permanently deactivated 373. Uber said it also suspended 58 passengers. The firm noted that a temporary suspension does not mean an allegation was substantiated.

Uber spokesman Hasbun said in emails that the company’s submissions to the commission were “based on reporting requirements and ongoing discussions with the CPUC.”

He added that “we included, as outlined by the CPUC, the number of TNC drivers suspended or deactivated for assaulting, threatening, or harassing a passenger or any member of the public while providing TNC services.”

However, Hasbun noted that the company’s policy is to not automatically suspend all drivers accused of a safety problem. He pointed to an Uber report that says the firm may temporarily suspend a driver from its platform pending an investigation for a serious complaint, but “the vast majority of safety incidents reported to Uber involve less severe or infrequent behaviors that may not warrant immediate removal.”

Hasbun added in an email, “Overall, any safety issue is exceptionally rare.”

Lyft’s report 

By contrast, Lyft told the commission that in the 18,178 entries concerning alleged incidents it listed in its annual report, the company provided a “warning and/or education” in 17,299, suspensions in 582 and permanent deactivations in 297.

Adams said in the interview that the firm had a lower number of alleged incidents than it might seem based on the number of entries in its report to the commission, but she declined to say how many individual incidents, suspensions and deactivations the company actually had. 

Adams acknowledged that Lyft — like Uber — does not suspend every driver who is the subject of a safety allegation. She said in an email that “depending on the severity of the incident reported, that investigation can include temporarily suspending the accounts of users involved.”

But Adams asserted that Lyft’s policies on reporting alleged incidents to the commission were very different from Uber’s.

“The definition of incidents requested by the CPUC are incredibly broad and imprecise, and they leave a lot of room for interpretation,” Adams said in the interview.

“We’ve chosen to interpret these definitions as broadly as we possibly can, and to err on the side of transparency,” she said. “In being as comprehensive as possible, it seems like we included a number of less severe incidents that Uber likely did not include. And obviously, these less severe incidents make up a larger portion of our numbers.”

“It’s clear to us that Uber makes a very different choice when it comes to reporting,” she said.

In addition, Adams said Lyft includes redundant entries for some incidents. For example, if a complaint came into the company by email and through the app, Lyft reported both to the commission.

And if an allegation was initially classified as physical assault and was later found to be harassment, Lyft reported it as one of each, Adams added, adding that the company wound up “reporting the same incident multiple times.”

“We are trying to give a comprehensive view of the type of incidents that occur on the platform and think it is helpful to understand this broader data set when understanding the nature of these issues,” she said in an email, adding that in this way Lyft believes it submitted an accurate report “in good faith.”

But as a result, Lyft’s report on assaults, threats and harassment appears to include many records that the agency did not request.

In a lengthy narrative explanation that Lyft submitted to the commission along with the data a year ago, the company did not mention its redundant entries and broad interpretations of the reporting requirement, or that it was concerned that agency definitions were imprecise.

Rather, Lyft’s narrative said that it was submitting the assault and harassment information “consistent with” the spreadsheet template provided by the commission.

Long list of offenses

That template is titled, “Assaults & Harassments — TNC drivers suspended or deactivated for assaulting, threatening, or harassing a passenger or any member of the public while providing TNC services.”

The template’s categories for the 2019-2020 reporting year required the companies to include trip ID number, driver’s identification, date of the incident, date of the complaint, whether it was investigated, how it was resolved and consequence to the driver. In defining what the firms must include, the agency provided a list of 48 examples of the kinds of conduct that must be reported within that field.

For the 2020 safety report, the California Public Utilities Commission told ride-hailing companies to report on these 48 examples of driver misconduct in a single spreadsheet field:

Argument, Assault, Attempted robbery, Attempted to physically remove passenger, Discrimination, Discrimination harassment, Entered passenger’s home, Fight, General harassment, Homophobic comments, Inappropriate comments, Injured by driver, Interaction with law enforcement, Made passenger uncomfortable, Physical assault, Racist comments, Refused to end ride, Road rage, Spit at passenger, Threats, Threw item at passenger, Urinated in front of passenger, Verbal harassment, Attempted kissing — non-sexual body part, Attempted kissing — sexual body part, Attempted non-consensual sexual penetration, Attempted sexual assault, Attempted touching — non-sexual body part, Attempted touching — sexual body part, Indecent photography/videography without consent, Masturbation/indecent exposure, Non-consensual kissing — non-sexual body part, Non-consensual kissing — sexual body part, Non-consensual sexual penetration, Non-consensual touching — non-sexual body part, Non-consensual touching — sexual body part, Physical sexual assault, Physical stalking, Sexist comments, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Solicited sexual act, Unwanted advances, Unwanted touching, Verbal sexual harassment, Verbal threat of sexual assault.

But the template does not provide a separate field for each kind of misconduct, and allows the firms to enter their own descriptions. In addition, it has no field for the total number of complaints received, an omission that prevents the commission from using the report to determine, for example, what share of them Uber investigates.

“We believe that it’s very important to have a standard and precise and consistent way to report safety incidents to the CPUC. And that doesn’t really seem like what they have at the moment,” she added.

“We’re eager to work with the CPUC on a reporting process that allows for a true understanding of the experiences on our platform and ultimately makes the industry safer,” she added in an email.

Curious timing of letters

The commission is formally investigating the definitions that Lyft and Uber have used for submitting data in their 2020 report, according to both Adams and Hasbun. 

Adams provided the Public Press with a redacted copy of the Sept. 22 letter that the commission sent to Lyft, but she declined to release the entire letter. The Public Press requested copies from the agency, but it declined to release them, saying they were investigative records that were legally exempt from disclosure.

The excerpts show that the commission requested “all definitions of assault, harassment, sexual assault, and sexual harassment” that Lyft used in its annual safety reports filed between September 2017 and the present. 

That letter came two days after the agency released the assault data to the Public Press.

Clark, the former director of consumer protection and safety, said, “the timing of their follow-up queries is curious coming just 48 hours after the data was released.”

The commission’s release of the partly redacted assault and harassment reports marks the first time it has publicly disclosed them. The companies for years fiercely opposed the release of any part of the safety reports, claiming secrecy was necessary to protect privacy and business information. They still claim that parts should remain confidential.

In March 2020, the commission voted to revoke the blanket secrecy for the annual safety reports after an investigative report by the Public Press published that January disclosed that it was based on a one-sentence confidentiality clause inserted into the 2013 regulations as footnote 42, without prior notice to the public and amid intense and sometimes illegal industry lobbying.

In a press release, Commission President Marybel Batjer, who has said she is leaving the agency in December, hailed the vote as bringing “necessary transparency.”

With the blanket confidentiality clause removed, Robert M. Mason III, an administrative judge with the commission, subsequently reviewed the 2020 reports submitted by Uber and Lyft and in December ruled that parts of them were not confidential. 

In processing the records released to the Public Press, the commission withheld personal identifiers and other information that the companies claimed concerned sensitive business information. 

Also redacted from the released data was a separate column that broke out “description of alleged sexual assault/harassment” for which drivers were suspended or deactivated, though those incidents are also included within the general category of assaults, threats and harassment. 

Neither Lyft nor Uber would say how many complaints each had received alleging sexual assault and harassment by its drivers, and how many drivers each had suspended and deactivated following those complaints. 

Lack of transparency

Despite the commission’s public pledges to improve transparency, it has yet to release any prior annual safety reports, though it is considering that. Meanwhile, the years of secrecy that it imposed on them obscured not only the safety information but also whether the agency effectively used it to protect the public.

“California regulatory agencies are only as good as the thoroughness and transparency of their work,” said Lynch, the former commission president, in an email. “Californians are entitled to know both what regulatory agencies are doing but also how they are doing it.”

The newly released data goes beyond the period covered in the “U.S. Safety Report” that Uber released to the public in 2019. Uber’s report said that in 2017 and 2018 there were 5,981 accounts of sexual assault, 19 fatal physical assaults and 107 people killed in vehicular accidents in relation to its service throughout the United States.

Uber hailed its report as a model of corporate transparency, but as the Public Press reported, it was incomplete. In addition, it provided national totals only.

However, in a filing last year Uber said it had received 1,243 reports of alleged sexual assault and harassment in California during 2017 and 2018 that were included in its U.S. safety report total. Uber said these incidents constituted less than 0.00025% of rides in California during the time period.

Uber has said it would release an updated report by the end of this year.

But Clark said the commission must have its own reliable data to effectively monitor ride-hailing firms and protect the public.

“The commission needs to pick up their game on this issue,” he said. Referring to the court cases in which passengers claim they were injured by drivers for the companies, he added, “There clearly are people getting hurt.”

Updated 10/21/2021 to include commission attorney Rebecca Ruff’s statement that it was withholding “investigation records.”

Updated 10/22/2021 to note the publication of Lyft’s new paper on sexual assault.

Frank Bass contributed data analysis, and Jenny Kwon contributed visualizations.

This story was produced in partnership with the McGraw Center for Business Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. Support was also provided by the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press provided legal review. Attorneys Shaila Nathu and Michael Risher provided guidance on public records laws. 

For previous coverage visit sfpublicpress.org/ride-hailings-dark-data.

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