Taxi service enforces zero tolerance on drivers refusing assistance animals.

Emma Myers 0:00

What instances of discrimination have you heard about?

Olivia Barry 0:08

We hear through people complaining passengers and customers who've had a negative experience with one of our drivers. And it could be across the whole country. We have over 8000 taxis. Emma, so odds are that if passengers are moving around and they have a bad experience, we want to hear about them, because the feedback is what can help us to improve those instances. And one is enough. When there's one bad one, it's completely unacceptable, and we really wanted to then listen to that cohort of passengers, hear directly from them, so we set up these focus groups so we could do that to then work out and work through our own systems, which we have in place bookings, and for dispatching those bookings, to make very clear to drivers, we were tracking these jobs and that wanted to that we would be able to have better vision of those ro of those trips, and then deal with any instances where there was discrimination very quickly, and that includes suspending the driver immediately so there's no recourse for the driver. We're not really interested in why he might not have done the right thing, we know he has done the wrong thing, and so we deal with him immediately.

Emma Myers 1:50

So why was it time to introduce the zero tolerance policy? So Cab drivers,

Olivia Barry 2:00

we wanted to do something very pragmatic to make sure we got the results. So that has included some of the measures that we've put in place to make sure that drivers are, in fact, held to account. The rules have always been there, but the enforcement across the industry hasn't always matched the severity of the offense. So we just wanted to address those issues through these reforms and really try and change the culture everybody deserves to travel with dignity. So some of the reforms that we have put into place now include trip prioritization, and we know if passengers note that they're traveling with a assistance or guide dog, or we know people are traveling in our wheelchair accessible taxis via their booking that we prioritize those trips inside our business to ensure they're dispatched with priority. And then, of course, there's the driver accountability piece. Drivers are reminded via messages into their car, once they've accepted one of these jobs, that it is a criminal offense to refuse service to any passengers with assistance or guide dogs. Then if we have any issues, we have eyes on that job, inside our business, inside our contact centers, and we have people watching those jobs very closely, and that's then led to us being able to have that zero tolerance policy for drivers, and then on the other side of the coin, it's always about education, and we're really committed to that journey with our drivers, and we have just recently added a new module, which is built on top of other training we've done, designed with best practice in mind. But we can't ever stop doing that either, because some drivers from different cultural backgrounds are actually frightened of dogs, and so they don't want to be that close to them, really, in the proximity of having the dog in the car. And that's something that I'm sure we can all understand is confronting our job at one three cabs is to make sure drivers, as I say, are educated, that assistance animals and guide dogs are very highly trained animals, and they're certainly very well behaved and respectful of their environments, Sometimes more so than other passengers they probably take. So we need to continue to break down those barriers for our drivers, and we have open days and driver expos and things like that, where we have been lucky enough to have guide dogs and assistance dogs that come along so our drivers can pat them and understand that they are incredibly disciplined animals and not anything that they need to be afraid of. And then I guess there's another we've heard feedback from drivers that they don't want the dog hair in the car, things like that. And one three cabs has embarked on rolling out a. Special dog mats for our taxi drivers, so that is no longer an issue or a reason for them to refuse either.