Taxi Driver Online

this is different when mr coutts put his plate on a merc it still had his name on the side door meaning he was the owner the situation now is individuals who were recently running private hire vehicles with their name on the door now running around with roof signs and hack plates on the same vehicles with the name dundee private hire on the door there are not many hired plates left and with it being a drivers market at the moment having to fork out fifty quid a week to hire a plate is not worthwhile the plate renewal fees are due by the thity first of this month the council put a one inch ad in the tele to remind everyone it will be interesting to see how many saloon plate are still on come june all the cabbies i know that are saying they are quitting are saloon plates

I wonder how many will 'forget' this year. That is, forget to renew their plate, not forget what kind of car they are operating

As for Mr Coutts, it was said that the cars were owned by 203020 and the were just using the plates, therefore it was just normal hire plate situation.

But what they did was just draw up some kind of agreement leasing the car to Mr Coutts so that showed he controlled the car and therefore then was not hire plate.

So isnt' what is happening with the new plates just a reverse of that? So they could draw up an agreement to avoid the hire plate situation.

What I mean is that any plate could be hired in Dundee just be the owner of the car drawing up an agreement to lease the car to the plate holder.

But of course most hired plates didn't do this, the licensee never had formal control of the car, so the arrangement was illegal.

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Dundee rocks. Almost.

ive not heard of anyone forgetting to renew their plates this year probably because for the first time they are driving the said cab, ive heard a lot of gossip about 203020 trying to liquidate their company over unpaid council rates it was supposidly in the press but i cant find it, any truth in it?

It was in the Courier earlier this month, it might have been saturday the 4th, possibly on page 3 (the reason I noticed it was because stories like this are normally just on the dundee news pages - 4 and 5).

I think it said that it was the council who put the company into adminstration over unaid business rates on the EAgle Mill. This may have been why the newer cars are in the name of a new company, but because the court case was started by the old company then it was they still ended up in its name - ie the Dundee Taxi Cab Company LTD. The TXs are mostly licensed to the Dundee Taxi Leasing LTD or something similar.

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Dundee rocks. Almost.

Just to let you gentlemen know history is repeating itself in Edinburgh, the Council are under siege. A legal challenge for Licence Plates is up and running and should be concluded one way or the other very shortly.

Edinburgh Council is looking for more time to come to a decision on a number of applications. They are looking to extend the period to the end of Nov 2005. Some of the applicants have already been waiting 8 months with no decision.

Needless to say if they don’t get this period of extension it’s game over.

I might add that this could have all been avoided had the Council put in place a working formula, increasing the fleet by X amount of vehicles over an indefinite period keeping up with demand and avoiding the huge increase in PHV.

The problem starts when you close waiting lists and artificially create an over inflated plate value. The plate value in Edinburgh is around £40,000 this price does not reflect the money to be made, but the sharp selling tactics of a few individuals auctioning plates.

The journeymen taxi drivers are reluctant to pay this kind of money and the economics of the situation dictates that it is cheaper to take the Council to task.

The outcome could be de-restriction as in Dundee. I believe this could have all been avoided had in not been for the greedy few that claim to represent the trade.


You reap what you sow as they say!

Mr Skull, have you any idea what sort of timescale we are talking about?

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IDFIMH

Mr. Sussex, as much as I hate to be “cloak and dagger” there is a number of individual that may use this information to their advantage. This is not to say they could not find out anyway but I would hate to think I made it easy for them.


Let’s just say sooner rather than later, like the next couple of months, max.

Whenever it is I wish you well.

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IDFIMH

The problem with deferment as far as my limited knowledge of the Scottish legal system goes is that it has never before been applied in respect of Taxi licensing under the current law in the Scotish courts. It will be most interesting to see if the courts grant relief from the six month mandatory decision making process which currently applies. If I was an applicant I would be making sure that my legal team were aware of the councils position and instruct them to act accordingly.

As long as current Scottish law is upheld and the council don't get a deferment beyond the six month allowed, then the applicants can't fail to win.

Previous case law suggest the council won't get the deferment they desire and it serves them right.

Regards

JD

Well, it is funny you should say that JD, that is exactly what wee thought and would you believe it our legal representation is of somewhat the same opinion.

Edinburgh Council has commissioned a survey that won’t come to fruition before the end of August and after consultations won’t be implemented until the end of November 2005.

This being the case you can see why we want to force the issue, Edinburgh Council are like any other council, they hope to dissuade you by challenging your commitment first and foremost and then your financial capability. I am not really sure if legal precedent comes into it. As pointed out by one of our MP’s “Edinburgh Council has lots of money to fight this matter regardless of what the legal position dictates”.


Unfortunately for Edinburgh Council I think they have come unstuck on this occasion, only time will tell.

Worst case scenario, wee get our licence plates later rather than sooner.

Whatever happens I would not have missed this for the world.

Just to add to the situation, I don’t know what it was like in Dundee before de-restriction but in Edinburgh we are getting eaten alive by PHV. At the current rate of expansion the PHV fleet is set to double again in the next five years. This would mean game over for the Edinburgh taxi fleet.

In the last 4-5 years the PHV fleet has went from less than 400 five years ago, to nearly 900 at today’s date.

This situation is compounded by the increase in late night busses and PHV working Edinburgh from the surrounding areas.

The theory in Edinburgh is that if you keep your numbers down and don’t increase your fleet your work will increase because of greater demand, increases in population, business, tourism etc.

The fact is if you don’t grow you die, not only are the PHV getting a greater percentage of the new work in Edinburgh but they are making serious inroads into our existing customer base.

The cost of running a taxi is going up, while the customer base is decreasing. The Cab Companies response to this situation is by giving greater and greater discounts to the big contracts, i.e. The Royal Bank, HBOS, Social Work etc. The cost of buying the work is then passed on to the taxi owner who in turn passes it on to the driver.

In short you pay out more you take home less. The journeyman drivers are being used as cannon fodder, we are the first line of defence against any financial increases faced by the owner.


It cannot go on it is that simple!

I don't think Edinburgh is really that much different from any other big city, in which case the PHV fleet will probably continue expanding, but it is doubtful if that will mean the end of the taxi fleet.

The point is that the market overall has been expanding rapidly in recent years, but where taxi numbers are restricted the only means of growing the market is through private hire.

Brighton is a case in point, where taxi numbers have been stagnant for fifteen years or so, but if I remember correctly PH numbers have at least doubled.

But this has hardly meant the end of the taxi trade - far from it - and as in so many places plate values have been booming in recent years, and it seems that much the same is happening in Edinburgh. PH is not so much expanding because they are taking over from the taxi sector, it's more a case of growing to meet demand in the market that the taxi sector won't expand to meet. That's not to say that PH couldn't in theory make huge inroads into the taxi sector's market, because in theory they could take over ALL the radio work currently undertaken by taxis, but this is unlikely in practice, and of course taxis will always have a monopoly over the street market. Of course, as you say PH is taking some contract work away from taxis (and no doubt there is some movement in the opposite direction as well), but a complete takeover of radio work by PH is unlikely.

I think the reason that Edinburgh's figures may look a bit more dramatic that usual is that the usual big city scenario of a big PH sector and a smaller taxi trade is reversed in Edinburgh, a bit like Liverpool in fact.

So around 2000 you had :

1,210 taxis, 430 PH, total 1,640

A more normal scenario would be the other way round, ie 430 taxis and 1,210 PH.

A couple of years later you had:

1,242 taxis, 653 PH, total 1,895.

So the market in total has grown by almost 16%, but because this growth has largely occured with PH, then it's numbers have risen by over 50%.

Thus 50% in two years looks huge compared to other cities, but in reality it's just because the PH sector started from a low base.

If we take the usual scenario but reverse it and assume that the PH numbers were 1,210 and taxis 430, and that after the two years the numbers overall had increased by the same number (ie 255), then assuming that taxi numbers still increased by 32 then PH numbers would still increase by 223.

But this would add to already high PH numbers (1,210), but the point is that the growth figure would only be 18%, which is clearly a lot less dramatic than 50%. But the 18% would be a lot more like PH growth in other big cities. Glasgow PH grew 15% over the same period.

So if in twenty years you have 2,000 PH and 1,500 taxis then that would just bring you into line with other big cities, even if taxi numbers were derestricted. I think Birmingham is derestricted, but there are around 1,000 taxis but over 3,000 PH, for example.

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

No problem with your logic there TDO the only problem I have is that the increase in PHV in Edinburgh has to be coupled with the increase in PHV and Taxis working the City from other areas. I would hazard a guess and say that the collective increase especially at weekends probably exceeds the total Edinburgh taxi fleet. I have no figures to back this statement but neither do the trade or the council. This is based on the observations of me and my colleagues.

It would however indicate that there is a direct correlation between the increase of the Edinburgh PHV and PHV/Taxis from outlying areas and the decrease in our earnings overall. One of my colleagues has worked out that his takings are down between 20p-35p a mile over the period compared to 5 years ago.

The artificially inflated plate value in Edinburgh is due to a number of reasons. The increase in driver’s rentals is making it more desirable to buy and a number of individuals coming into the trade with disposable income, such as redundancy payments etc. This is coupled with the sharp selling tactics of a business set up to auction licence plates.

Earnings are going down but the value of licence plates is going up?

When I say “game over for the Edinburgh Taxi Fleet” I am of course referring to your working hours, your cost of living and how much you are prepared to work for in relation to your earnings of five years ago.

There is every indication that Edinburgh is a boom City but it seems to be booming for everyone but the Edinburgh Taxi Fleet.

For most of the 90's there were no PH in Dundee. There was around 800 taxis in the early 90's after numbers were uncapped, but numbers were recapped and plates were gradually handed back (they can't sell them) until the late 90's when there was around 600. At around this time the taxi offices started taking on PH to do phone work. There were a few dozen at most, but they i think they all had hackney badges and were basically just the same as the taxis but could only do radio jobs.

Around 2000 a purely PH firm was started by a couple of millionares. They had big ideas and were certainly impressive, with brand new E class Mercs, uniformed drivers all at taxi fares, which at that time in Dundee were less than a £1 a mile after the flagfall. They had nearly a hundred to start with, but the wheels soon came off and they ended up with less than half that.

Including the Mercs and the PH's with the taxi offices there were never a lot more than 100 PH in Dundee, and apart from the Merc blip were really just part of the taxi trade, so not really like Edinburgh.

Now that anyone can have a wheelchair taxi the Merc PH's have disappeared and they run mainly TX's. Most of the PH's with the taxi offices have swapped to wheelchair taxis.

There are still a few PH with the offices who seem to prefer to do that rather than run a wheelchair taxi but probably only 20-30 (?) compared to over 600 taxis (saloons less than 500, wheelchairs 150?).

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Dundee rocks. Almost.

What kind of work are they doing exactly? Are they just bringing them from other areas and dropping them and perhaps picking them up again later, or are they doing work within Edinburgh. Has this always happened or is there an enforcement problem of some kind?

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Dundee rocks. Almost.