Taxi Driver Online

At the recent Committee meeting in York of the Licensing & Regulatory Committee, when YTA pointed out a glaring error in the figures, the Halcrow manager stated that it made no difference to the outcome and they would be prepared to defend their case in court, she also said that Halcrow had a watertight case and had never lost a case, can anyone please find anything to the contrary, as they are at present carrying out another survey in York.

Halcrow have never been to court in England or Wales as far as I know. The only outfit to ever go to court in England were TPI in Plymouth, they lost. The Stockport MORI surveys of 2005/6/7 were deemed by the court not to be a proper survey but that case was sorted out in chambers as was the KNW Trafford survey which was deemed to be historical and potentially flawed. All in all survey companies do not have a good track record defending their surveys.

Dundee is an interesting case because even after the Coyle appeal in 1997 Halcrow told Dundee council that their 1999 survey had a shelf life of three years. They forgot to mention that Lord President Rodger had said "a survey is only a snapshot of demand at that particular moment in time" he implied that a survey could not be transposed to some distant time in the future. Hence the now famous phrase from the Dundee case of "historical surveys".

Dundee put forward the argument that their two year Halcrow survey was sufficient to refuse licenses on the basis that they could be satisfied as to current demand, the sheriff disagreed and informed them that a survey of some two years was historical in nature. That is the only time a Halcrow survey has ever been subject to a legal test in a court of law and it failed miserably. Its failure was not down to the content of the survey because that was never the issue, what was the issue was the time frame of the survey.

The next time you see the rep from Halcrow I would remind them about the Dundee case, you might wish to inform them that the only time their advice was ever challenged in a court of law it was found wanting. Dundee lost because they relied on the advice of Halcrow that the shelf life of their survey was good for three years, the court deemed otherwise.

Regards

JD

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Copyright notice © The contents of this post are copyright of JD and are not to be reproduced outside of TDO without written permission.

If it's that glaring an error then clearly a court would take issue with it, but don't forget Halcrow can only offer views and stats, it's councillors that decide on the de-limit issue.

So don't point out any glaring errors to Halcrow, point them out to the councillors.

Just for my own noseyness, what was the glaring error?

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IDFIMH

There is a part time rank outside a night club, which is only operable between midnight and 3 am, they said that more people had been carried from there than from the station which is a full time rank 24/7, they also calculated 4000, passengers had been taken from a rank which did not exist, they said they had confused it with another rank which they did not survey, when YTA questioned this they offered their court response.
I think the report is on the council website somewhere

Here is a part of the report from Halcrow in which they admit the mistake but say it will not affect the overall outcome.

In ranks such as the station, passenger waiting time will never reduce, due to the loading restrictions imposed locally and is independent of the number of vehicles available.

· York has a higher than average provision of Hackney Carriages per population than other Licensing Authorities.

· The proportion of passengers travelling in hours where the delay exceeds one minute is only 9.3% compared to 21% in other Local Authorities.

· The proportion of passengers travelling in hours where some delay occurs is 31% which is lower than the average 37% for districts analysed.

· The survey is flawed in a number of areas including information in relation to the Clifford Street rank, the railway station rank and the St Saviourgate rank.



Members received a short presentation from a representative of Halcrow regarding the methodology of the Unmet Demand Survey. The representative said that the figures relating to Clifford Street taxi rank had been over factored and these would be adjusted in the final report. These adjustments would not effect the overall outcome of the report. They also confirmed that factors such as the traffic management system at the railway station had been taken into account.

Unless someone is going to challenge the survey it doesn't really matter whether its flawed or not.

Regards

JD

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Copyright notice © The contents of this post are copyright of JD and are not to be reproduced outside of TDO without written permission.

The Thinker showing a keen interest now in the halcrow survey but now the horse has bolted and your no longer in office the Tom Browne case result about to be announced ......iam smelling something and it dont smell good

Which horse bolted?

If the council policy is based on dubious evdence then a court will decide if the application has merits?

CC

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

Surveys when presented to council often have flaws... but as long as the committee are aware of them and they accept them before they make a decision..... then that is OK.

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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!

I think it's also worth mentioning that Halcrow don't assess taxi demand in full accordance with the DfT Best Practise Guidance.

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IDFIMH