A helpful message is posted in each Honolulu taxicab, in full view of passengers: “If you have any complaints, please call 733-2530.”
If you actually want to make a complaint, that’s where the helpfulness ends.
Anyone calling the number during working hours is greeted with the phrase “abandoned vehicles.” After hours, the line either rings endlessly or is answered by a recording that abruptly ends without allowing callers to leave messages. The city’s Department of Customer Services, which oversees all metered cabs, has no way to gather, track and analyze complaints.
Not surprisingly, city officials say they receive few complaints about cab service. Frequent travelers contend there are many problems but nobody is fixing them.
“I take airport cabs in San Francisco and New York and in Las Vegas, where you stand in line and in 30 seconds you are in a spotless cab and on your way,” said business executive Andrew Friedlander. “That is not the airport cab experience in Honolulu. Here you get drivers who cannot speak English and do not know where they are going. You get old cabs that are beyond filthy. You open the door and stuff is falling out everywhere, and sometimes they don’t even have air conditioning.”
A four-month Honolulu Star-Advertiser investigation of taxi regulation in Honolulu found:
>> The city maintains taxi records in an archaic system that is impossible to search and sort electronically.
>> The contract for airport taxi management services has not been put up for bid in more than a decade, and won’t be eligible for renegotiation for another two years.
>> Even when serious complaints are lodged, the city says it has little leeway to suspend or revoke licenses.
Customer Services Department officials don’t know how many complaints they have received, or the resolution of those complaints, because most taxi records are kept on paper forms stored in cabinets. Inspection forms for cabs don’t include basic information such as the age of vehicles or how many miles they’ve been driven.
“No database for taxi complaints exists,” according to a department response to a public-records request. “Complaints must be submitted in writing,” and the Motor Vehicle Control Section “files hard copies of taxi-related investigations to complaints in alphabetical order by either taxi driver name or taxicab company.”
The private company that manages the Honolulu Airport taxi concession, AMPCO Express, does keep its own database of complaints. That database covers only airport taxis and has more than 300 complaints from 2010 through April.
About half of those complaints involve customer service problems: drivers refusing to take credit cards, being rude, driving slowly or taking slower roads, arguing about tips or assuming they could keep the change. While some of these cases were unfounded, most were resolved with some action by AMPCO. Drivers were suspended, reprimanded, counseled or customers were offered apologies.
In one case a “customer complained that she asked that the driver turn on his AC on the drive to Disney Resort in the hot 12:00 noon and the driver did not, and only responded saying that natural air was better.” The customer received an apology, and the driver received a warning letter.
In another case a “driver took the long way via Kaimuki to Hilton Hawaiian Village.” The customer received an apology.
About 1 in 4 AMPCO complaints involved customers who felt they were overcharged for their rides. In about half of these cases, there was no evidence to support the complaint. In a few other cases, problems with onboard credit card readers caused double charges or overcharges that were quickly remedied. Cases where deliberate overcharges were made (one driver reportedly charged customers extra “airport fees” when calculating his rates) resulted in driver suspensions.
Another common complaint involved drivers bringing airport passengers to the wrong destination. Usually, this meant going to the “wrong” Hilton, Marriott, Outrigger, Hyatt or other hotel with a similar name. These complaints were usually resolved with a reimbursement and an apology to the customer. In a few cases the driver was suspended.
Other complaints involved language barriers, unsafe driving and dirty cabs. These were usually made in conjunction with customer service or overcharge complaints.
One customer “complained about his ride home to Kapolei. Driver drives erratically, hands shaking etc. Hazardous driving of concern for safety.” The outcome: “Driver acknowledged the complaint as well as an identical complaint received three weeks prior … issued one week suspension. Recommended to 84-year-old driver to consider retiring from driving taxi as his present reflexes not what they were years ago.”
Still, not everyone complains to the concession operator. Honolulu resident Margaret Murchie was so fed up by a recent experience that she emailed Gov. David Ige and called George Szigeti, Hawaii Tourism Authority president and CEO.
Murchie got off a West Jet plane after a six-hour flight from Canada last month to find a long wait at the taxi stand.
“The line was so long that I snapped a picture. It took 30 minutes to get a cab and that’s if you could find the concession in the first place since our airport signage and information desks are so bad,” Murchie said. “Our airport is just embarrassing. It’s so much nicer in New York City and Vancouver. I felt so sorry for the tourists, who were just arriving in Hawaii. Come on, even in Third World countries you can get a cab quicker.”
Some customers are too frustrated to complain at all. Waimanalo resident Kimo Carvalho said he was dismayed in December when his taxi driver got pulled over by the police on the way home from the airport.
“The blue lights flashed. The police officer approached the cabdriver and asked to see his license registration and taxi certificate,” recalled Carvalho, who is the Institute for Human Services’ director of community relations. “The cabdriver started speaking in Mandarin. Finally, the police officer got so frustrated he shouted, ‘Slow down!’ and walked away.”
After the officer left, Carvalho said the cabbie said, “No worries. This happens all the time. We just talk in a foreign language and they go away.”
Irritated beyond belief, Carvalho said he chose not to protract the issue by complaining.
“It was a long ordeal. I just wanted to get home,” he said.
Department of Customer Services Director Sheri Kajiwara said the city will request money at some point to modernize record-keeping operations, but in the meantime, searching taxi records won’t be easy.
Because each file contains personal information, the department would not allow the Star-Advertiser to access the city’s records. In order for the newspaper to find all instances of a specific offense, a city employee would have to search and read through each paper document to separate and find the offense. Kajiwara estimated the time to do this task would be about 30-40 hours, and the approximate cost would be $300-$400.
To copy all the city’s documents, roughly six to seven reams of paper, the copying cost would be 50 cents for the first page and 25 cents for each page after that. The total cost for copying would be approximately $750 to $875.
Because the complaint line doesn’t work properly to start with, the Star-Advertiser passed on this request.
