Wake-up call for e-hails
‘Tired driver’ ruling
Uber and Lyft must hand over detailed trip data from every ride they take in the city as part of an effort by the Taxi and Limousine Commission to track tired drivers, officials ruled Thursday.
The new rules expand a program that began in 2015, in which the rideshare apps told the TLC where and when they picked up passengers. They will now also have to reveal the time and place they drop people off.
The rule is a part of the TLC’s updated “fatigued driving” regulations, which aim to keep a closer eye on how many hours drivers spend on the road.
“At its heart, this is a Vision Zero initiative designed to ensure that our licensees share the road with other users in the safest and most responsible way possible,” said TLC spokesman Allan Fromberg.
While the apps have been revealing their passenger pick-up data since 2015, Uber has fought turning over drop-off data, saying it compromised the privacy of its customers.
But the rules passed on Thursday require only that the companies turn over a drop-off intersection instead of an exact address. An Uber spokesperson hailed the decision to not ask for exact destinations.
“This new proposal reflects that the TLC is beginning to understand the concerns privacy experts have raised,” said the representative. “We will continue to stand up to protect the privacy of our riders and drivers, especially in an age when data collected by government agencies can be hacked, shared, misused or otherwise made public.”
TLC officials said they always intended to give companies the option of only handing over intersections instead of exact addresses.
The agency is still working out the detail of how to collect the data, and said it won’t start gathering it for at least six months.
The TLC started working on creating tighter rules for drivers last year, after a cabby who was in his 16th hour of work struck and killed grandmother Luisa Rosario, 88, on the Upper West Side, and The Post exposed that the TLC’s rules on mandated break time were loose and unenforceable.