Audit Report on the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission’s Controls over Processing Consumer Complaints

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The objective of this audit was to determine whether the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission (TLC) has adequate controls over processing consumer complaints.

The TLC is responsible for licensing and regulating the City’s medallion (yellow) taxicabs, street hail liveries (green taxis), for-hire vehicles (community based liveries, black cars and luxury limousines), commuter vans and paratransit vehicles. The TLC licenses and regulates over 130,000 vehicles and approximately 180,000 drivers.

A consumer can file a complaint with the TLC if s/he has a negative experience with a TLC-licensed driver or vehicle concerning one or more of the following issues: unsafe driving; cell phone use while driving; overcharging or demanding tips; refusing a passenger’s requests, including requests for pick-up, change of radio volume, heat, or air conditioning; treating the passenger rudely; dirty condition or bad odor in the vehicle; or refusing a passenger because of race, disability or destination within New York City.

Consumer complaints are processed by the Consumer Complaint Unit (CCU) of the TLC’s Prosecution Department. Serious offenses, for example spitting or sexual harassment claims, are transferred to the Discretionary Revocation Unit for investigation. There is no deadline for submitting a consumer complaint. To file a complaint, a consumer (complainant) can call 311 or access 311 online at nyc.gov/311. Consumers can also file complaints by letter, email or fax to the TLC, calling the TLC call center or appearing in person at the TLC’s office. All complaints are entered into 311 for processing. Complaints are stored—along with incident details and complainant contact information—in Siebel, a 311 web-based citywide database.

Audit Findings and Conclusion

The TLC does not have adequate controls over its processing of consumer complaints. A primary cause is that the TLC has not instituted sufficient input, processing and access controls in its Electronic Summonsing and Administration Program (ESAP) complaint database to ensure the completeness and integrity of the data maintained in that system. The TLC has also failed to ensure that critical system documentation—such as data field definitions, a complete, current user manual and security access levels for the system—is maintained.   As a result, the TLC has a limited ability to ensure that users are properly instructed in how to use the system and that no one is able to make unauthorized modifications to the data stored in ESAP. Due to these failures, the TLC cannot be reasonably assured that all complaint information recorded in ESAP is accurate, which could hinder its ability to properly investigate complaints.

From an operational standpoint, the TLC does not ensure that complaint dispositions are updated in Siebel so that accurate complaint-closed dates are recorded. This weakness compromises the integrity of critical information required by the TLC to accurately report its timeliness in closing complaints. Additionally, the TLC has not adequately documented its procedures for complaint processing to ensure that all parties are aware of their responsibilities.

As a result of these deficiencies, the TLC is unable to reasonably ensure that complaints meriting further action by the agency are followed up. Since complaints are one of the avenues by which the TLC is made aware of drivers who drive unsafely or provide poor service, the weaknesses identified in this audit increase the risk that such drivers may not be identified and that appropriate measures for correcting such behavior may not be taken.

Audit Recommendations

Based on the audit, we make 14 recommendations, including:

• The TLC should ensure that ESAP has adequate input controls, including the creation of valid syntax rules for inputting information, making certain fields conditional and generating appropriate error messages.
• The TLC should ensure that ESAP has adequate processing controls, including controls for the identification of duplicate complaints and for filtering or flagging complaints requiring supervisory review, and by adding suitable close-out options for complaints referred within the TLC from one unit to another.
• The TLC should ensure that appropriate access controls are established in ESAP including by creating and assigning additional profiles based on the staff’s levels and responsibilities and enabling read-only access for certain users as appropriate.
• The TLC should update its ESAP data dictionary to include a description of the data captured by each field.
• The TLC should review the ESAP user manual, update it where necessary and distribute the complete manual to all ESAP users.
• The TLC should maintain an accurate list of ESAP users, including the available functions or permissions that can be performed by each.
• The TLC should ensure that complaints are closed out in Siebel on the same dates that they are actually closed in ESAP. If this is not feasible, the TLC should consider using ESAP data as the source for the average number of days figure reported in the MMR.
• The TLC should adequately document its complaint processing procedures in comprehensive written policies.

Agency Response

In its response, the TLC agreed with 12 of the audit’s 14 recommendations and disagreed with 2: that it maintain user profiles for one of its computer systems; and that it investigate the creation of a holding queue for complaints where the subject drivers are not timely identified by their bases so that they are not closed prematurely. Notwithstanding its agreement with most of the recommendations, the TLC disagreed with the audit’s overall conclusion.