Taxi Driver Online

From today the new rules that Tand G promised would never happen.

taxi and bus companies can organise door to door buses particularly in rural areas even going off route to pick them up.

here is oportunity knocking.


satelite buses no longer a dream.

What has happened today?

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IDFIMH

Ive heard of a new rural development issue.

Basically, up here in Cumbria, the County Council has been contacting various firms in Licensing areas to see if they'd sign up to the scheme.

The County council phones the taxi company, who will pick up the passenger from the home address (in the countryside), and take them to their destination (within district).

The passenger pays 30p, the cab is paid 80p per mile when empty, and i think £1 per mile when pob, the cab is paid return mileage.

You must buy vouchers from the County Council and various outlets, only non bus routes qualify, and service is not on demand really as the County Council call you back to advise when you can have a cab.

Dont know if this is the same scheme.

Cant see it working around here, but a similar scheme is up and running in South Lakeland.

The vouchers are smart card type things, each participating cab is to be fitted with the equipment to read it.

Regards

Captain Cab

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

no it isnt the same scheme.
the buses must be timetabled but they dont have to run unless they get a call.

and as youve licensed the route it now qualifies for bus grant (formely fuel levy)
told out transport dept who said it does not qualify under 9 seats, they rang back 2 hours later to correct themselves, yes under 9 qualifys.

however the licensing regime is also tightened, the days of putting whole towns down are gone, but I am not yet clear how they avoid this, give me a couple of days.

The days of putting whole towns down, never existed. Well not in the eyes of the TAN anyway. There were a few cases about it a few years back. We tried and got our knuckles rapped. TaxiBus did it in Chelmsford too, but then gave it up when the Traffic Commissioners decided to have "an interpretation" on it.

What has changed, is that formerly you needed to specify a core route. You could divert off the route to give door to door service if wanted, but there were quite strict (if not very specific) conditions. You couldnt just run "on demand" unless you were a taxi. In which case, you couldnt get Fuel Duty Rebate, or register it as a local service. Now, you must still specify a core route, and if registered with a timetable, must actually run to the timetable. But you can say Dial and ride or runs on demand only now, and still register it as a local service.

We have always been able to do all this as Taxis. But, we never seemed to choose to do it. That, is our loss. As now, it is legal for the buses to eat into our domain just one step further.