City Maps Better Cab Service for Neglected Areas : Transit: New franchises may be offered in underserved neighborhoods such as the Eastside and South Los Angeles. Officials hope to lure bandit drivers into legitimacy.

Concerned that huge stretches of Los Angeles do not receive adequate taxi service, city transportation officials are pushing a plan to expand the number of cabs in underserved areas such as South Los Angeles and the Eastside.

In seeking bids for such areas, officials are looking at the very drivers they have been arresting for years--the bandit cabbies who operate without city licenses but fill in gaps in service.

The bandits cruise city streets picking up fares in cars that closely resemble their legal counterparts. Detractors say they often operate without insurance, charge customers exorbitant rates and use cars and drivers that would not meet city standards.

It will probably not be the bandits alone competing for the new city franchises. Companies currently licensed to serve large zones such as the Westside and the San Fernando Valley can seek to expand into the underserved areas, as can companies licensed in other cities.

Councilman Nate Holden, who chairs the City Council’s Transportation Committee, said opening the market to more drivers will have two benefits: “It will make the existing companies do a better job in underserved areas and it will bring new companies into the system.”

For years, residents in some areas of the city have complained that cabs ignore their neighborhoods in favor of more lucrative sites such as Downtown hotels and Los Angeles International Airport.

A study conducted by the city found that the nine licensed taxi operators do a good job overall in serving the city’s 469 square miles but fall far short in some residential areas--mostly in the inner city--where there are longer response times and more “no-shows.” About 90% of cab rides in the city are requested by phone, and city standards hold that a taxi ought to pull up within 15 minutes of the call.

Some cab companies dispute the city’s findings, and others argue that it is violence against cabbies that makes them wary of some neighborhoods.

For drivers’ safety, the city has required protective shields between the front and back seats of cabs. Officials say all of the city’s more than 1,400 taxis have installed the shields.

Although the underserved areas have never been officially defined, city officials say they include out-of-the-way enclaves such as the Hollywood Hills as well as neighborhoods in South Los Angeles and the Eastside that drivers sometimes deem too dangerous. The precise areas in need of more cabs will be determined later, after officials review the bids.

Unlicensed drivers have moved to fill the void, cutting into the business of legal cabdrivers and frustrating city regulators.

With so many cab rides coming from telephone orders, officials say, the bandits sometimes monitor the radio calls of rivals and attempt to beat them to the customers.

Last year alone, the city arrested 425 bandit drivers for operating without city permits--a misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine--and impounded 179 of their cars.

The companies that have paid more than $800 for city franchises complain bitterly about the bandits. In 1991, 200 licensed cabbies drove around City Hall honking their horns to protest the proliferation of unlicensed cabdrivers.

If the bid proposal is approved by the City Council later this month, bandit drivers--once described by former Mayor Tom Bradley as a “menace to the city”--will be given a chance to compete for the city licenses. Many unlicensed cabdrivers already work in loose networks and they could bid as a group for a piece of the city.

The prospect of allowing the bandit drivers into the system raises concerns among some licensed companies.

Shervin Mahmoudian, general manager of Beverly Hills Cab Co., doubts that bandits will comply with city rules once they are licensed. “I do believe that we have some areas that are being underserved, especially in the south and east,” he said. “But legalizing the bandits is not the answer. Once they are legalized, they will probably head for where the money is.”

Others are optimistic that finally bringing illegal taxi operators under city regulation will improve service.

“Creating opportunities for bandit operators to become qualified, licensed operators would raise the quality and safety of the service they provide through regulation . . . and would stimulate existing operators to provide better service to retain their market shares,” senior transportation engineer Alan E. Willis said in a report.