Cab drivers fight
new airport rules
Hundreds of Oahu taxicab drivers are trying to block new rules for picking up passengers at Honolulu Airport from taking effect next month.
The rules are being implemented by AMB Industries Inc., which is expected to take over the contract to manage taxi transportation at the airport on May 1.
An attorney representing the Honolulu Cabbies Association filed a motion for a restraining order yesterday asking the court to block AMB from taking over.
"We want a public hearing about this," said plaintiffs attorney Pat Jaress. "I tried to talk to people at the company about this, but I couldn't get any answers out of them."
The association represents about 400 independent drivers. Jaress said cabbies are concerned about three changes, specifically:
>> Having to sign an "oath" that they will adhere to certain guidelines."That's a huge increase for those who do high volume at the airport," he said. "That's going to cause a big bite out of the pocketbook of a lot of guys out there."
>> Having to submit to vehicle inspections every time they make a trip to the airport.
>> The elimination of taxi drivers' option of paying a monthly $400 fee to operate at the airport. Without the monthly fee, Jaress said, cabbies must instead pay $4 a trip.About 240 cab drivers signed a petition against AMB taking over airport taxi operations from Signature Cab Holdings, which does business as The Cab and Americabs.
However, state officials said that AMB's rules are intended to fix problems that have plagued airport taxicab operations for years.
Department of Transportation spokesman Scott Ishikawa said that the elimination of the monthly fee was because some cabbies were abusing the system and allowing other drivers to use the monthly permits, thereby cheating the state out of revenue.
"Our guys are saying that the revenue coming into the state and the number of taxicab rides leaving the airport don't seem to match up," said Ishikawa. "What we want to do is get an accurate count of taxicab rides at the airport, gather that data, then decide if we want to go back to the monthly fee."
Ishikawa said the new system will issue drivers a trip ticket with a bar code on it to verify that he or she is assigned to that particular trip to the airport.
Ishikawa said the vehicle inspections and guidelines are in response to complaints by riders.
"We just want to see if we can keep service kept at a certain level," he said.