Taxi Driver Online

Deregulation explained


I'd like to write my observations on it for you all to view, some will agree others will not, but that's not the purpose anyway.

My council did this back in the early 90's before I was a hackney, it was done in a rather backdoor fashion at the time as one taxi office proprietor effectively got an LO into bed with him, this was proven by the fact that shortly after the decision to allow unlimited WAV plates the said LO went to work for him, anyway the end result until 1997 was an additional 83 WAV plates issued that still run today, there were more but at one stage through the last recession and uptake of plates ppl ended up handing them back as they couldn't run profitable, since then a good few of them have gone from 5 seats to 8 seats, so that's effectively two saloon jobs everytime 6-8 ppl want a cab who are together, eventually the association campaigned the council to restrict again and after a survey they did indeed restrict again.

The modern day deregulation machine I feel has been a bit of a Hillsborough in effect, when I say this I refer to the football disaster in Sheffield, the comparison is letting too many ppl in without any thought with disasterous concequences, since then football has now insisted on seating and proper marshalling of numbers so the crush effect can't happen again.

The trade however has been carpet bombed, instead of working a surgical military operation the ppl who called for deregulation in government gave no thought to numbers vs numbers in a balance of units per customer, had they used a method of where justified unmet demand existed and was likely to continue to do so they would've issued a limited number of new plates until demand was satisfied instead.

When you have too many glasses and not enough beverage you end up with drivers extending their working hours, this in itself is not a good thing, I've seen a man who'd driven for 15 hours that day insist I gave him a long job because it was his turn out, I had no choice but to give it to him as there was no one in authority in the office at the time, but his eyes were red raw and I can only imagine what the ride home was like for the customer.

Then we have the police solution to everything which is to bundle everyone in the same spot for "easy" management, the effects of this are ppl do not use the cabs to jaunt around anymore, they simply get one from home and go to the city centre and stay there most of the night, this results in same old effect where ppl get sick of it and no longer go out due to the lack of choice, add in what would be a small fight easily broken up in small crowd areas and you have a mass brawl instead, again this leads to ppl not going out anymore due to feeling unsafe with nowhere to escape to.

I don't see any of these minister's readily accepting a pay cut, infact they are moaning they can't make do on 100k pa, yet expect a man to live on a tenth of that, the whole thing imo has been handled without any planning or consideration, infact I'd say the whole thing has been create purely to relieve the dole queue, another thing I can say is true because the job centre actively pushes ppl towards cab driving by way of help for start up costs and application forms, unless the whole thing is addressed better in future all the ppl who think they've had a victory in obtaining a free plate will come to realise something free that provides nothing but expenditure and commitment that you can't get out of in the same way as simply handing your notice in in a regular job will become a ball and chain to them, because all the time you can get a free plate so can everyone else.

Rules have been broken as I've seen drivers from other parts of the world who can't speak English, nor know the simplest destination, i.e the hospital or a station, this is one of two things, either the driver is driving on someone elses badge or he was simply given a badge to get him off benefit.

Then we come to the most harmful member of the taxi society, the baron, he never drives instead he simply buys up as many cars as possible and lets others do the hard work, I don't know if it still exists but we had a system where you could only obtain one licence years ago, i.e you had a licence and you drove the car, but this was loopholed and bypassed in the end by the baron's, another term that has been allowed to die off is the rule that the holder shall drive a minimum of hours per week, a man who owns 25 car's cannot possible do this can he, if the rules had been adhered to and it really was one man one plate both for PH and HC you would have a better unabused system in place.

The market forces theory falls down as this will only really work effectively when things are good and all the ppl who are what I call here because they have to be would be gone to other jobs that they'd rather do, allowing the job to become the domain of the guy who wants to drive a cab once again, which I feel leads to better service because he wants the customer again tomorrow, where someone just doing it for a limited time will just think short time and in effect damage the trade with overcharging and general rudeness, all the time things are bad market forces won't work because ppl have nowhere else to go.

And finally when you get drivers making uTube video's of their misery it shows just how bad things have become, it was never a brilliant income, but now it's almost a waste of time full stop.

I know I've missed out some of the things I wanted to say, but this will do for a start, if you want to reply be objective, read it and reply sensibly thx.

This is the only thing I agree with you about.
1 car ,one owner driver period. owners would then choose there hours as they cannot work 27/7 then there would always be a chance for all to earn a crust

In areas that restrict hack numbers, the PH take over, and they thrive because some council insist on wavs only as hacks and quite a lot of people dont like them so phone a PH,1, for comfort, and 2 because they are cheaper in the areas that dont have meters fitted.
Councils that insist on wav hacks only should conduct a survey on how many potential wheelchair users there actually are in there area, to save hack owners paying through the nose for a wav that very possibly will not be used for its purpose
Councils should also licence saloons as hacks to give the public a choice of vehicle, (that may come in the DDA report)
There should be a minimum age at which councils will licence a hack or PH, but once licenced that vehicle can stay on as long as the owner wants or is replaced.

Thx for that Skip, btw sorry if I was a bit sharp with you the other night in Ali's thread, I won't go into it here, but just accept my apollogies for it's agressive manner.

I believe the only regulation of vehicles that should be in place is a managed regulation. When issuing plates the council should consider the demand, rank spaces and the current trends of the travelling public. They should communicate with the police and the highways/engineers department. The council should always be in a position to provide sustainable ranks when they issue more plates. It is far easier to find space for ranks if plates are issued in smaller quantities e.g 5 rather than in 100's. If the council fail to provide the rank spaces needed they are faced with considerable over ranking such as occurs on the Wirral. They cannot realistically expect a HC to sit on a rank in the middle of nowhere in the hope that a passenger may come along. It is obvious even to the most dense of our society that HC's will only be where there is a chance of customers. Even now on the Wirral I believe if they did another SUD it would still show that there is an unmet demand due to the fact that there are areas that HC's do not sit in, due to the lack of work. I also believe that it should be one man one plate.

With regards to the drivers it is no secret that I believe drivers should be trained. A minimum requirement is that they should be able to read and write in English. All other professions require proper education into that trade/profession. Just imagine the state of our homes, heating, legal system, schools, restaurants, pubs, roads etc etc if the people working in those professions weren't trained. They're bad enough now with training!!

It should not be so easy to become a taxi driver. It should be considered a profession and not 'it'll do for now' job. If a new driver had to sit in a classroom for say 6 months learning all aspects of the trade they may think twice about their commitment to the job. Whilst I don't have any objection to part time cabbies who perhaps come into the trade due to early retirement I do take exception to those that jump into taxi driving until they get a 'proper job'.

The whole system is a mess with councils ruling the roost it's frustrating. If the government think it's a good idea to have a best practice guide then why don't they do a proper investigation into the trade and introduce some of the best practice that they suggest. This would leave councils with no doubt about what is best for the travelling public. Why do we leave it to lay people in councils chambers to make fundamental decisions about drivers and vehicles.

I do believe that is my rant over

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

What is the point of limiting the numbers of taxis if you don't limit (in some way) the number of drivers?

Improve the standards of drivers by proper entry criteria and proper enforcement.

In other words don't let the riff raff in, and if they mug their way in then make sure they improve, or out they go.

If this trade is in the mire, then why are folks desperate to join the party?

Why are folks buying plates for up to £80,000?

As I mentioned on another thread last week the hackney trade has let the PH trade take vast amounts of their, now, ex-work. And that's partly because the hackney trade, in many areas, hasn't offered the service folks now want.

Mr T will confirm that Sefton and Liverpool are restricted, this has allowed the PH trade to virtually take over the phone side of the trade.

However you will be pleased to hear that I don't think the hackney trade is doomed, but restrictions ain't it's saviour.

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IDFIMH

The thing that hisses me off is, drivers who have full time employment elsewhere they just come on at night or weekends, they should not be allowed

Bring in the 48 hour week and they wont.

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IDFIMH

I concur with Sussex.

In your manor, Doom, you have a very large and powerful PH company that prospered on the back of restriction.

In my borough, derestriction is years old, certainly well before I started 10 years ago, and we have virtually no private hire. The ranks are busy and most drivers belong to a radio circuit of some sort so all get some PH-style phone work.

We have about 220 HCs, 30 PH in a borough of about 80,000. According to a recent forum meeting with the council, no new plate numbers have been issued for many years, they merely recycle surrendered plate numbers so anyone can see if a higher plate number is issued. A colleague of mine has the last plate issued, no 250, and he has held that for about 6 years now. It will be apparent to everyone when plate no 251 is issued.

The local market has reached economic equilibrium with supply matching demand in general terms.

I've got to add to that as some of it is wrong, it's fair to say the part I am referring to would appear that way on first look, the company you refer to prospered due to lack of vision or will to accept technology on the other's part, the firm is very close to me in many ways, the owners are friends of mine from long ago, I worked for them when they first aquired the company, it all started with a simple but ultra effective data system that purely let the opp know how many free cars he had at the time in which area's, this got replaced at high cost to them with the Auriga system, by then I'd left I just couldn't do the shifts or swallow the low fares anymore, since then they've upgraded the data heads at least twice, so in effect they became what they were through re-investment while others bought a new pack of bic's and some A4, as the car vote swung their way this enabled them to pick off the small guy with good cash offers for their companies until it got to the stage where shear car coverage ability made them so much more efficient than other's, so if you break it down 50% was investment, 40% cheaper fares and 10% fast service, sadly over here it's all about price, that's all ppl really care about, should you ever decide to drive over here I can absolutely say you will be back in Fareham within a week, you just wouldn't be able to stick it and would feel you're wasting your time.


Anyway, some good answers from all, keep em coming and then we can evaluate all the bits and maybe come to agreement on some positives, which is the threads purpose tbh.

Would it be fair to say that the harder the entry requirements, the more a driver will earn once licensed?

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IDFIMH

Maybe.......lets get into debt for an unknown income

CC

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Not fully as it stands currently, for that to happen there would need to be sustantial reductions in licences to start with and that will only happen over time.

BUT

In essance if you have a fleet of drivers who know where to go upon job dispatch, and then know how to get from a-b avoiding traffic jams and going the correct way, i.e even a detour that doesn't end up adding to the fare for the customer, so it might be half a mile longer but £2 shorter on the meter over a meter that's ran half the journey on stopped in traffic etc


Pne thing that did come to mind though earlier is a test after a test, i.e you have to sit another one say in 6 mths time, this one will not be so much a knowledge test but a customer test with questions on pricing, how they would react in certain scenario's and maybe even some defence lessons for dealing with an attacker.


Believe it or not back when I 1st licenced it was kinda self regulating the way you suggest, those that knew earned and those that didn't sat looking at the map book half the day, everybody has to learn but this did sort the wheat from the chaff, now it's a complete idiot haven, tell the box where you are, the box tells you where the next job is and the TOM TOM takes you there, 1st day on shift driving I went to the guy's house to pay in, he took the cash and said to me....I knew you could do it, this was how he judged how good or bad you were by what was in the bag, a bag that could only be filled one way, shouting down the mic and being available again asap.

Limitation of numbers or implementing higher standards, both have the same purpose keeping people out.... for the benefit of the people that are already in.... closed-shop mentality...... if you are really honest with yourself....
In Sefton there is the biggest private hire fleet in the country with a turnover of 7.5 million jobs a year...... it would still be as big if they were all licensed hackney, this particular business has been created through the business skills of the management and their aggressive advertising campaign about having the lowest prices per mile, plus of course their fast service to the customer.
I would point people to looking at the future, big companies are moving in and starting a national network, in De- restricted areas it will be easy for them.... no plate premiums to pay for....Ps.. I once used the analogy of Hillsborough in an article I wrote .... to which the relatives and friends of the victims strongly took offence....

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

There's no greater opponant of delimitation / deregulation than myself, but I disagree with what you write.

CC

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Good.. I would have been disappointed if you had... the Sefton hackney and private hire trade have just lost 70 per cent of their school contracts in the last two weeks to one such company.... it will be interesting to see over the next year if the trend continues in other areas....

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!