grandad wrote:
How many drivers are going to look at asking for a tariff increase to account for the rise in the minimum wage?
I doubt that there will be many, they will just suck it up and get worse off.
Obviously as our drivers are employees we will be giving ours a rise and hopefully the Council will allow the school transport prices to rise again. If not we will possibly have to stop doing them.
Probably not many.
I have thought about the mentality of the taxi trade for a while now.
It always amazed me how so many drivers are so cheap in their rates and refuse to increase their prices to customers even when their own costs have gone up.
They don't even pass on their rising costs onto customers.
This is a unique element of the taxi industry.
Obviously, most businesses will refrain from increasing their prices to avoid losing business.
The fact that taxis in a lot of cases are discretionary spending does not help in attempting to increase costs easily.
Even a local fish & chips shop in my area is claiming that due to the rise in price for fish and cooking oil in the last year along with the high energy bills they are barely making £1 profit per meal as the owner has not passed on their costs in total to their customers.
Again this is discretionary spending so if the prices go up too much demand will disappear.
It's not an easy task. Very tough environment for everyone at the minute.
Some businesses can increase their prices due to more flexibility.
For example, soft drink companies, crisp and chocolate companies can decrease their size and keep prices the same to maintain the same profit margins.
However, it is quite concerning because crisp packets are getting mega small and yet the prices are going up significantly. But it is easier for some companies and harder for others.
Taxi drivers and companies can't really introduce any measure to reduce their costs or disguise higher prices.
Technically, they could perhaps downsize their vehicles or trade in for an older one but is this a practical measure? The council will want fees for changing etc.
It also does not help that taxi drivers are dealing face to face with customers so will get some push-back (abuse etc) from the public which also makes increasing any prices difficult.
It's times like these that the councils should really introduce licence fee reductions and other measures to reduce costs for the industry.
There might be huge numbers that will leave the trade and we might even see more problems with vehicle maintenance standards such as bald tyres and the like due to drivers struggling.
Not a pretty picture for anyone at the moment.
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