NorCal SCI seeking volunteers to test Uber & Lyft's Wheelchair Accessible Vehicle service in SF
We have reported extensively on Uber and Lyft’s legal troubles over the lack of service to accommodate wheelchair users. While they’re both facing federal law suits, they have been piloting programs in select cities in the country testing out different approaches to remedy this issue. San Francisco is the only city in Northern California that both companies have devoted resources for their pilot programs but no one seems to be aware of how the program is performing. As an advocacy organization, we felt the need to put these two companies to the test and this is where we need your help.
If you are a power wheelchair user, we need you for our test program. Our goal would be for each individual volunteer who either lives in San Francisco or can travel to San Francisco to place a service request utilizing the companies’ mobile app and arrange to be picked up from their location and taken to a pre-determined location. You would then place another service request to be returned to your original location or taken to a different location. We would test their service on different days and times of the week as well as attempt to stress their service by having multiple volunteers place service requests at or about the same time.
We really need to know their responsiveness in order to better assess their approach and, more importantly, provide much-needed feedback of their service levels, good or bad.
And here’s where you, as a volunteer, could assist. As mentioned earlier, you’d need to be a power wheelchair user as their new Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles are specifically to accommodate such chairs. We know that if they can handle power chairs, manual chairs would not be a problem (even though manual wheelchair users are typically able to use regular vehicles provided they can transfer independently into the vehicle). You must have both companies mobile apps loaded on your mobile phone. We will reimburse you for all the trips taken under this program. We’ll make a schedule of dates/times available for you to choose and would require feedback to a set of pre-determined questions about your experience with each ride.
If you would like to participate in our test program, send an e-mail to franklin@norcalsci.org.