Taxi Driver Online

Well the local operators have been moaning for years they can't meet customer demand, so no doubt they will delighted Uber is coming to their aid.

Uber submits application to operate taxis in Hull

Uber has submitted an application to start operating about 250 taxi drivers in Hull.

The ride-hailing firm's request is set to be heard by Hull City Council on 12 February.

Regular cars, larger minibuses, pet-friendly rides and vehicles for accessibility needs would be part of the service.

Uber's drivers and vehicles would be licensed by the council, a report to the committee said.

If approved the application would mean the taxi firm could launch its own services, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Both Hull Cars and Drive currently offer apps to book private-hire vehicles in the city.

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IDFIMH

Usual jumble of misleading terminology in the whole article. But, and looking at the final sentence above in particular, you'd be forgiven for concluding from that that Uber aren't private hire, but are taxis

If they were taxis they wouldn't need a license of course.

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Taxis Are Public Transport too

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Unless you are in Scotland.

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IDFIMH

Uber to bring 250 taxis to city

Uber taxis have been given permission to operate in Hull by the council.

About 250 drivers and vehicles from the ride-hailing firm will be licensed by the authority.

Regular cars, larger minibuses, pet-friendly rides and vehicles for accessibility needs will be part of the service.

The application was approved on Monday at a licensing hearing.

Councillor Mark Bisbey, chair of the licensing committee, said: "Like any other operator's license granted to any other firm, there are stringent safety measures in place and will have to be reapproved when the time comes.

"We know we have a lack of taxis in the city with demand outstripping supply and we must meet this gap where we can."

Both Hull Cars and Drive currently offer apps to book private-hire vehicles in the city.

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IDFIMH

And these new drivers are going to come from where exactly?

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IDFIMH

From whichever bottom-of-the barrel licensing authority is situated in the same Uber geofencing area as Hull?

Which makes the licensing chair's statement ridiculous and misleading - the 'stringent safety measures', and enforcement thereof, might be up to another authority. But which, presumably, will be less stringent than Hull's own.


(Presumably Wolverhampton isn't in the same Uber geofence area as Hull, and therefore presumably any additional drivers in Hull wouldn't be licensed by Wolverhampton. Presumably.)

But they could have done that without a Hull ops license.

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IDFIMH

I think they have Wolverhampton Uber's in Leeds, so maybe they can work Hull.

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IDFIMH

But they need a Hull op's licence to take on Hull-plated cars?

Then they can augment that with new drivers directed to some fast-track/bottom-of-the-barrel authority?

So they then just use the sub-contracting device to enable the use of both Hull-plated cars and those from elsewhere?

Wherever the cars they are using are badged and plated, they need the triple-lock in place, thus need an op's licence for each badging and plating authority that they use. Or something like that

I mean, didn't they get knocked back for a York operator's licence, but they still work there with cross-border cars?

The benefit of a York op's licence would be that they could use York-plated cars, but it just makes it slightly more difficult for them to service York without a York licence, but obviously by no means impossible.

There's a piece in the latest issue of TaxiPoint (which I actually downloaded ), which contains one or two interesting insights and nuggets.

Some interesting analysis in it (although most of it will be familiar to regulars on here), but I wish they'd challenge nonsense like this rather than just parroting it:


OK, so let's just accept that there's a supply and demand mismatch in Hull that needs to be addressed with more drivers (which, of course, I'm sure incumbent drivers would dispute, not to mention non-Uber operators in Hull. And the latter will no doubt change their mind about the 'urgent' need for new drivers if it's Uber recruiting them.).

So where are these drivers coming from? Er, presumably it's just rearranging the deckchairs, as per usual, so what changes?

Ah, but of course as well as recruiting some locally badged and plated drivers (which is presumably why Uber specifically applied for an operator's licence in Hull), no doubt they'll be able to recruit them more easily by using cross-border cars, because as I recall it there's an ongoing debate about standards for new drivers being too high in Hull.

But, er, who's responsible for local standards in Hull? The licensing chair quoted above...

So effectively he's condemning his own licensing regime in Hull. And effectively inviting in new drivers badged and plated by less selective licensing authorities, with all the enforcement issues etc that will entail.

(Just noticed that I actually made much the same point further up the thread, and I thought the licensing chair's quote in TaxiPoint was new rather than the one in the BBC report reworded

But it's surely worth repeating the point, so there )

What was the figure for net migration last year ? were there really that many NHS posts to fill ?

every council in the UK is under pressure to house migrants in their area including Hull so there is no shortage of mugs to fill the drivers seats since these people also need jobs and a good proportion of them are not very highly qualified (many are economic migrants or asylum seekers)

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Yes, Edders, that's the wider labour market dynamic.

But my point was more about the licensing angle per se rather than the wider picture.