CPUC News Blog

CPUC Trains Law Enforcement on Passenger Carrier Rules

This month and next we are continuing to conduct classes to train law enforcement officers about our transportation regulations and to explain how law enforcement can correctly apply the Public Utilities Code in their daily duties. 

The CPUC has regulatory and safety oversight over for-hire passenger carriers (limousines, airport shuttles, charter and scheduled bus operators) and Transportation Network Companies (TNCs).  We license passenger carriers and respond to and investigates complaints of unsafe, unlicensed, and uninsured passenger carriers.

The current training is in Fullerton. Our last class had approximately 30 attendees from the California Highway Patrol, Orange County Sheriff's Office, Huntington Beach Police Department, Riverside Police Department, Riverside Sheriff's Office, Fullerton Police Department, and Bakersfield Police Department.  

Subjects covered in the training class included types of passenger carriers, code sections to cite, elements of a passenger carrier-related crime, vehicle impounds, and basic TNC information. 

If you are going to hire a passenger carrier, please ensure they are licensed and in good standing with the CPUC by looking up the company in our online database. 

We have opened a proceeding to consider alternatives to the amount that Community Choice Aggregation and Direct Access customers pay in order to keep remaining utility customers financially unaffected by their departure, which is required by legislation.  Legislation also requires that departing customers do not experience cost increases as a result of an allocation of costs that were not incurred on behalf of the departing load.

The Power Charge Indifference Adjustment (PCIA) is the mechanism to ensure that the customers who remain with the utility do not end up taking on the long-term financial obligations the utility incurred on behalf of now-departed customers. Examples of such financial obligations include utility expenditures to build power plants and, more commonly, long-term power purchase contracts with independent power producers.

This proceeding will consider whether the PCIA can be reformed or whether alternative mechanisms would better meet the statutory goals for cost allocation.

In addition to the central cost allocation question, the proceeding will examine data transparency, cost stability, mechanisms to verify prudent portfolio management, and other relevant matters.  

On Sept. 25, 2017, a Scoping Memo was issued that sets the proceeding schedule and estimates that a Proposed Decision will be issued on the central cost allocation issues in July 2018.

You can subscribe to documents related to the proceeding using the proceeding number R.17-06-026.