Under current law, the public utilities commission (commission) may assess a civil penalty in an amount up to $550 against a transportation network company (TNC) if the TNC had written notice of a TNC driver's violation of certain prohibitions against discriminating against riders and the TNC failed to reasonably address the violation. Additionally, a driver is required to report to the TNC any refusal by the driver to provide services to a rider, and the TNC is required to annually report all such refusals to the commission.
     The act removes the condition that a TNC first have written notice of a driver's violation of the discriminatory prohibitions before a civil penalty may be assessed against the TNC, increases the maximum civil penalty to $1,300, and requires the commission to consider certain mitigating and aggravating factors in determining whether to assess a civil penalty and the amount of a penalty assessed. The act also requires:
A TNC to mandate and provide education to drivers concerning the transportation of riders with service animals;
A TNC to provide monthly, rather than annual, reporting to the commission regarding drivers' refusal to provide services;
A TNC to provide a mechanism to allow a consumer to report a driver's refusal to provide transport to the consumer directly on the TNC's digital platform, which information must be included in the TNC's monthly report; and
The commission to aggregate and anonymize the TNCs' monthly reports and make the anonymized reports available to the public.
(Note: This summary applies to this bill as enacted.)