Taxi Driver Online

Since 1986 when the first court cases appertaining to deregulation as it was known then, starting rolling off the production line, the desire to challenge a licensing Authority against their decision to restrict licenses has somewhat tailed off. However, with the advent of the new Government guidelines are we about to see a revival in these types of cases?

Mr Preece of Plymouth is the first person to throw down the Gauntlet to a licensing Authority, presumably because they denied him not one, but I assume several licences.

With what we know about the law, does Mr Preece have more than a 50/50 chance of succeeding?

What would be your advice to Mr Preece?

You may be of the opinion that he firsts needs to consult a good licensing solicitor. It has become apparent that one of the best licensing practice's in the UK is Kearns and co. of Swansea. So should Mr Preece retain Kearns who have an impressive track record or should he retain a local firm?

How do you think Mr Preece should play the European wild card? Which was so emphatically introduced in the Dublin case? Should Mr. Preece advise the Eastern Europeans he has working for him to apply for individual H/C licenses?

How should Mr. Preece persuade a Court that a survey which is conducted over a short period of time and only measures demand at certain Taxi ranks is a valid way of measuring demand as a whole.

How does Mr. Preece convince a court that latent demand can not be measured by standing at Taxi ranks counting people who embark at a specific location?

Is it a case that sat around on a Taxi rank waiting for customers to come to you rather than you going to the customers, is an odd way of measuring demand?

Can Mr. Preece convince a court that the very small number of inexperienced casual workers who are employed to undertake the details of a so called survey are sufficient in number to actually be of any consequence.

Mr. Preece no doubt has an action plan but it may be interesting to hear what advice our members have for him.

Best wishes

JD

He could do a lot worse, and if he does instruct them it means that Plymouth Council wont be able too.

Now that would be really interesting, especially with Plymouth's track record of fighting lost causes, it could lead to a judgement from the highest court of the land.

Part of me thinks that surveyors are ultra cautious over SUD surveys, so they try to meet in the middle, so to speak. In other words they will find SUD and advise that a small amount be issued asap, and then a few each year.

That aside, I think a barrister well up on accountancy will eat a SUD survey for breakfast.

I think a formula must now be in place to measure latent demand, not sure how, but the likes of Halcrow must be aware of the Gov's views on it.

Yes.

I think Halcrow now use cameras. But surely the trade must see them, and make sure those ranks are well served. I think TDO spells it out very well in M&R.

I suspect Steveo has mentioned it to him.

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IDFIMH

If I drove a taxi in a restricted area I would argue that the restrictions were presumably never intended to apply to me, since the issue of a taxi license presupposes an increase in supply, but since I'm a driver already supply would be unchanged by awarding me a license (or looking at it from the other side, granting me a license wouldn't help meet unmet demand, therefore the provisions were presumably never expected to apply to me).

Euro law is probably the best bet though, and JD alluded to the free movement of workers and capital.

The other one that JD mentioned in the past is a good bet as well - abuse of a dominant position where exclusive rights are granted. One case says that if such a right is granted then if the grantee patently can't meet demand then that's an abuse. Figures clearly show that in restricted areas PH has grown greatly while taxi figures have stagnated, whereas in unrestricted areas taxi growth has been significant - thus the restrictions mean that taxis are clearly not growing to meet deman, in the broader sense if not from the narrow perspective of the old Act.

It could be argued that premiums are an abuse as well, since any economist will tell you that it shows prima facie that money is being taken out of consumers' pockets.

I meant to have a look at the Human Rights Act as well, as regards discrimination. I know the Royal Parks case said that discriminating in favour of taxis over PH was legitimate in policy terms, I wonder if quotas might be a different matter?

I suspect that most licensing lawyers wouldn't have a clue about anything other than the narrow perspective that we know and love, whereas competition and EU lawyers won'thave a scooby about the trade.

If I win the lottery I'll have a closer look at these things, but at the moment it's a non-starter.

Anyway, what IS the state of play in Plymouth? If they've determined his application and there's been no recent survey then he's won? Or is there a recent survey?

if I was Mr Preece, I would retain Kearns.

I would then invite in the Transport And General Workers union, and pay For Mick Pollard, and Andy from Brighton down to organise the lads and agitate.

send em back for a few months, win the case and get the agitators back and get the limits back on.

then flog the plates.

It would involve him taking a long walk on a short pier

Captain Cab

Considering that very few people have offerred detailed advice to Mr Preece, I have put together my own contribution as to how he should consider going about his legal challenge. I hope Steveo prints this out for Mr Preece because he may find it helpfull.

No one really knows if Mr Preece is deadly serious with his legal challenge against Plymouth Council but if he is serious he may wish to take on board the following information.

It would appear that Mr Preece is a man of adequate financial resources and that if need be he could soak up any incurred losses quite easily. Financial resources however will not necessarily gain him victory. He must have a legal team who is more competent and knowledgeable than that of the other side, namely Plymouth council. Mr Preece should also familiarise himself with the legal options that are available to him.

Mr Preece may or may not be aware but he has at least one unique joker in the pack of his legal challenge. That Joker is the employment status of EU citizens from outside the UK.

The Council will no doubt have informed the company who is undertaking the survey that they are under a legal challenge for more licenses and that they expect the completed survey to conclude no overall unmet demand. In other words they are telling the surveyors what they want. It’s a case of he who pays the piper calls the tune.

Mr Preece should therefore expect this survey to come back with a provision that says no unmet demand but to counter any future demand they recommend an increase of ten licences.

Now that’s what this survey will say. I don't know the exact number of licenses it will recommend but I will stake what little reputation I have left on that being the case.

Mr. Preece should have already calculated for this eventuality. Whether Mr Preece will benefit from the Issue of licenses depends on the way the Council issues those licenses. Let us consider the consequences if he doesn’t benefit.

We have a situation where the Council has just undertaken a professional survey and they will no doubt rely on that Survey in a court of Law to help them maintain their chosen policy of restricting numbers.

So is a Survey the only information a Council can rely on to help it maintain it's chosen policy? On the face of it that would appear so. No doubt the Council may put forward social and moral arguments with regard to current licensed Cab drivers but I'm afraid in a court of law what matters is the Law, not what is morally right or wrong.

The dangers of going down the moral road is that a court may find it is morally wrong to deny people the basic right of obtaining a license just so others can enjoy the fruits of inhibited competition. So not only would a court not take into account the moral argument from a vested interest point of view, the court in its wisdom may decide that the moral issue resides firmly with the many and not with the few.

So Mr Preece you have only to prove that A survey can not only be flawed but it can be manipulated to read what anyone wants it to read.

So how does Mr Preece go about breaking down a survey in the light of the OFT findings, that all surveys are flawed, inaccurate and misleading.

I suppose he could start at the very beginning by asking how many staff undertook the survey and how many were actually employed in the field obtaining data?

Mr Preece also needs to know how many hours they worked and on which days.

Mr Preece then has to enquire about the professional status of those people in the field? In other words, were these people casual workers taken from local employment agencies or were they professionals with related qualifications. If they were casual, it would probably mean that they know nothing whatsoever about latent demand. It was just a case of them putting down figures on a sheet of paper at a certain point, of how many Taxis came and went in a particular time frame. Their observation would also include how long customers had to wait at the specific locations in question.

It would appear that by calculating the number of field workers who actually stood at Taxi ranks, with the number of hours worked, would give you an overall accurate picture of the time scale in which the Survey was conducted.

Some surveys costs have been quoted as being as low as 6 to 8 thousand pounds. It makes one wonder how many field workers this amount of money would generate and still leave enough for the Surveying Company to make a profit? Calculating the cost of the survey, with the total amount of employees, gives you another field by which to calculate the number of hours worked.

Calculating the number of hours worked by the number of Taxi ranks surveyed will give you a definitive answer as to which areas were not capable of being surveyed. A large area such as Plymouth will not be surveyed properly because these surveying companies will not submit the resources to survey the area as a whole.

What the Survey Company will do, is Survey the city centre and make a calculation based on the activity of Cabs at certain ranks at certain times of the Day, based of course in the city centre.

In the past, It has always been the case that the field workers employed in taking statistics have come from the casual labour Market. There is no check on these people as to what they write, therefore it has to be taken at face value that their figures are correct. The only way to disprove these figures, is to either have your own field worker doing the calculating or video a particular Rank, for the same number of hours as that of the field worker.

Never the less, in order to attack the survey as being flawed Mr Preece will have to get hold of every scrap of data that this survey was calculated on. The Freedom of Information act is on the statute this week so that should not be a problem. In any case, that information should be readily available as a matter of course. A Council who restricts numbers has to show why it restricted numbers and the data it used in coming to that decision, whether accurate or flawed.

Mr Preece has to obtain the information of the Number of Workers employed, the time frame in which the survey was completed, the cost involved and the total area surveyed. This information is extremely important if you want to discredit the survey findings.

It is impossible to survey the area as a whole within the time frame in which these surveys are conducted. It sometimes takes Cab drivers a long period of time to establish where demand and latent demand exists, or indeed if any latent demand exists at all? Knowing the area one works in is something that a Survey Company will never get to know because they do not venture out into the area as a whole.

The advantage that MR Preece has is that he knows the area as a whole and he can perhaps present his own evidence that demand does exist both inside and outside the City Centre. What Mr Preece has to do is sit down and ponder the points I have presented to him in particular regard to conducting an accurate survey.

He must take on board that he does not need to prove unmet demand, it is for the Council to prove there isn't any. He need only prove beyond doubt that the survey is flawed and that it not only fails to address unmet demand in areas outside the City centre, it also fails to address latent demand in the area as a whole. He will need to show that only a minute area of Plymouth was surveyed and that those undertaking the survey were inexperienced casual workers who may have lacked incentive to carry out an accurate and professional survey. Bring into question the competence of the field workers and you bring into question the competence of the whole survey.

Mr. Preece may consider producing his own figures that show demand far exceeds that which is limited to Taxi ranks. He needs to raise doubt on the study of people at particular Taxi ranks and that such studies are flawed. Studying one or several Taxi ranks in such a small area of perhaps one square mile is not an indication of demand as a whole. Such data only shows it represents the level of demand at an isolated place at a particular time and may or may not reflect demand at other times of the week, month or year.

He may wish to cast doubt on the time scale of such a Survey? He may wish to demonstrate that coming to a city for two weeks in every three years and proclaiming there is not unmet demand by a process which he and the OFT have already demonstrated as beyond flayed is beyond the bounds of credibility.

You have been told how to discredit a survey Mr Preece, you may take comfort from the fact that no one has ever challenged a survey with the accuracy in which I have offered to you. The ball is now firmly in your court. You should remember this, no court has scrutinised or dissected the way surveys are conducted you now have a unique opportunity to put that right.

The Joker in the pack, which you are probably aware, is the European Factor. When I first started posting on this forum I highlighted the observations which came from the Trial Judge in the Dublin case. In that case the Judge went out of his way to inform both parties that in his learned opinion refusing applicants a license when those applicants are equally qualified, was a breach of EU law.

He is of course right, there is no doubt about that.

Mr Preece has to consider whether or not to ask one or more of his European employees to apply for individual Hackney Carriage licenses. I think he should consider the benefit of this approach in the light of building a three pronged attack on the decision of the Council to refuse a licence.

We have already fired the opening salvo to penetrate the councils defence. It is now up to the Admiral to lay down another Broadside that will render the vessel dead in the water.

In order to enhance his chance of victory Mr Preece has to introduce the European factor. That means getting these Eastern Europeans to apply for individual licenses. Unless the council lifts numbers control it will eventually refuse the EU applicants. Once a refusal has been given you can then proceed with a joint action. Mr Preece and his fellow applicants stand a far better chance of success if they work as a unit.

I suggest Mr Preece reads the Dublin Judgement very carefully and that he gets advice from a good competent EU law firm, who can advise him on the best approach.

The final coup de grass comes by way of the Government guidance. A council has to justify its policy of limiting numbers and that by limiting such numbers the public will be better served.

Logic dictates that public deprivation benefits nobody except perhaps in this case where it could be argued that public deprivation benefits those persons actually doing the depriving. To deprive means to limit, to limit means to deprive. The sad thing about deprivation in this instance is that it is not only the public who are being deprived but also those persons wishing to pursue a better standard of living, namely prospective Taxi drivers.

Get this message across in a court of law and it may be your best form of attack. The only question mark, is how will a court of law view the government guidance in legal terms?

I suspect a court may put as much weight on the inference that a council should only limit numbers, where it can be proven to be beneficial to the public, to that of a flawed survey.

Therein lies your case, you have a three pronged attack the council only has a flawed survey to compliment its policy of restriction. Remember that restriction is a Councils policy, Councils who retain numbers are bias in favour of restricting licenses, otherwise there would be no need for surveys.

Convince the court of the points I have raised and you can't fail to blow a great big whole in section 16 of the 1986 Transport act.

Best Wishes

John Davies.

Very good JD, 10 out of 10.

I'm quite relaxed that any new survey, be it in Plymouth or elsewhere, will find it hard not to show SUD.

I think government thinking, along side the OFT's rubbishing of SUD surveys, and latent demand being properly assesed, will now make it very hard for councils and surveyors not to find SUD.

I think the worm has turned, but if Mr Preece wishes to help us all, then good on him.

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IDFIMH

thank you very much john for taking the time to reserch in to this and to type it up on here.
i shall indeed print it out and pass it on to Mr. Preece.

John
I am dissapointed in you, surveys are undertaken by cheep labour who provide the figures on cold nights, then the experts compile the report on those figures.

but you bloodywell know that surely?

But they don't adjust the SUD figure to compensate.

They may put that it was raining or snowing, they may put in that they only surveyed a small % of ranks a small % of the time, but the SUD equation is set in stone, and doesn't allow for any fluctuations.

Although I can't wait to see how they allow for latent demand.

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IDFIMH

well here goes the sud, which Halcrow admitted to fto was a load of [edited by admin] comes in where there is a que but no cabs

latent demand is supposed to be addressed in on streeet interviews

in the last Halifax report came the following gem "but we did not see it so we have discounted it"

that was the time I went against the reports as I thought they were useless.