PUC review flags changes for Uber

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The PUC released a report on its findings in late March, including seven recommendations designed to strengthen background checks and rider safety, said PUC Press Secretary Nils Hagen-Frederiksen.

Harry Hartfield, a spokesperson for Uber, said Uber has already submitted a written response to the PUC about how the company plans to address the agency’s concerns, and will work with the PUC to implement many of its recommendations.

“We were glad to partner with the PUC on this report and have already responded to all of their recommendations and assumptions. We look forward to continuing to work with them to ensure the safety of our riders and drivers,” Hartfield says.

Both the PUC report and Uber’s response can be found on the PUC website.

The safety of Uber riders has been in the news recently, largely sparked by the highly publicized death of a South Carolina college student who was killed by a fake Uber driver in late March. In fact, release of the PUC report coincided with news of the murder.

“That was unfortunate and coincidental,” Hagen-Frederiksen says. “It wasn’t part of the plan of our releasing of the audit. It was on the agenda. The release of the report came the same week and there was a lot of discussion of safety issues at that time. The audit was nearly a year-long process and not related to a single incident.”

The commonwealth granted ride-hailing services like Uber, Lyft and zTrip, also known as Transportation Network Companies (TNCs), permanent authority to operate in the state in 2017, according to Hagen-Frederiksen, and much of the conversation around the legislation passed by the General Assembly at that time centered on safety issues.

Each year the PUC conducts audits of a number of the major utilities under its purview, be it an electric company, a gas company or a transportation business, Hagen-Frederiksen says. The agency plans to go through an identical evaluation process with Lyft, the second-largest TNC in the state. That audit should be finished in early 2020.

The Uber audit included a study of the driver onboarding process; driver background-check practices; driver and rider complaint-handling practices; contracts and service agreements established with Uber’s background-check provider; performance metrics and safety statistics; rider and driver mobile in-app safety features; upcoming safety initiatives and other related issues.

Hagen-Frederiksen said the report points out that Uber is fully complying with Pennsylvania law and the baseline recommendations for what any TNC is required to do.

“In fact,” he said, “they are going above and beyond the minimum requirements, but given that, what we did is take a very close look at what they say they are doing and what they are saying is the intent of what they plan to do and how that can be further improved.

“If you think of it from a business point of view, it is really about continuous improvement. There is state law that sets the baseline and Uber says they do an enhanced group of things, but we looked at that and examined how that could be made better. Some is going to require work on the part of Uber; some is going to require them to work with the General Assembly or some other entity,” he said.

For example, state law requires that transportation companies do a background check on drivers before they are hired, one year later and then every two years after that, Hagen-Frederiksen explained. Uber said that since new records are coming in all the time to the government, it is doing background checks continuously.

But continuous checks are a challenge in Pennsylvania because of the way records are entered into systems and processed, so the PUC audit found that Uber isn’t really doing ongoing background checks.

“We told Uber that if you are saying that you are doing this, you must do it,” Hagen-Frederiksen says.

Another finding of the PUC audit is that Uber has some interesting safety tools in its app, Hagen-Frederiksen added, but they aren’t easy to locate. “They are there, but they could be hard to find,” he said. “If you are in an emergency situation, you don’t want to be fumbling around.”

So the PUC asked Uber to think about how things could be better marked and made easier for passengers to find, he explained. Uber’s response to the recommendation was favorable and the company is rolling out changes.

According to Hartfield, last year, Uber announced that it was adding new safety features and improvements to its screening process, including centralizing safety information in the app, an emergency button for 911 assistance, re-running driving and criminal background screening annually and monitoring of new offense data.

Hagen-Frederiksen said: “What we are talking about at the end of the day is the safety of the traveling public. The report, which may be the first of its kind, and Uber’s response are out there as a benchmark for what is being done nationally.

“Each state has their own slightly different set of guidelines. We think that there are a lot of good lessons to be learned by other jurisdictions and for the travelling public. Be aware of your surroundings, where you are going, and the tools that are available for you to keep you safe as well. You are a passenger but you don’t need to be passive. You need to be an active participant as well,” he said.