How San Francisco’s taxi paratransit program is getting ruined by politics

The program works by utilizing taxis to transport the program’s participants. Users receive discounted coupons known as taxi scrip to pay for these trips. Taxi drivers can then redeem those coupons for cash.

As one might imagine, the use of paper coupons for payment has been a serious flaw in the program, leading to high administrative overhead and fraud by a small but significant minority of users and drivers.

So when MUNI, which runs the program, captured federal funds to replace paper coupons with an electronic payment system – i.e. debit cards – the concept was well received. MUNI sought contractors to design and deploy a city-wide taxi paratransit debit card system. The taxi community, in virtual unanimity, endorsed a local contractor – GPS Data Solutions – who had partnered with two experienced and reputable firms that promised stakeholder participation and involvement throughout the project’s duration.

What was attractive about their proposal was the ability for taxi-operators to choose equipment best suited for their businesses, and that the equipment was able to accept payment not just from debit cards but also credit cards and TransLink “smart cards”—the same pre-paid cards already used by BART and AC Transit.

As expected the contractor was awarded the project, but what followed is an example of how even well intentioned and strongly supported plans can be open to corruption and self-dealing.

GPS Data Solutions, after promising quality and choice, took a different path. Those partners who helped design and win approval were replaced by a Canadian equipment manufacturer – Digital Dispatch Systems, Inc. – who, in return for $300,000 in compensation and bonding responsibilities, would get an exclusive right to sell its proprietary equipment to the project and assume control. (Pricing sheets showed they expected to receive up to two million dollars in profit on the three million dollar project.) The commitment to TransLink capability was scrapped, as was the choice in equipment promised to taxi-operators.

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