Taxi Driver Online

Shouldn't a drivers earnings be related to a known reference figure - say the national avereage wage for instance.

And in a similar way shouldn't a drivers weekly hours be related to say the average working week.

So that a drivers desired standard earnings per hour could then be established. This would then be a suitable starting point from which the actual earnings could be adjusted. (Taking into account all the variables associated with the trade.)

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The higher the fewer.

Cant totally agree with that. Earnings in the trade are not greatly influenced by the capital cost of the vehicles, but more by the running costs. Fare levels are without doubt the buggest factor in establishing profit, as realistically all our costs are roughly comparable. Earning more per mile actually travelled (obviously there is a time relative), does increase our profits. However, if we increase our dead mileage because we have put our fares up, then this will eat into those profits substantially.

Having more profits does not necessarily equal more cars - you could be in one of those areas where plate numbers are limited

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There is Significant Unmet Demand for my Opinion.

That would be a nice starting point, and in the employed taxi/PH trade should be a must.

But as most of us are self-employed, then do we take ourselves through the courts?

However a council could/should take these things into account when they set taxi fares.

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IDFIMH

No I don't think that is always the best way - look at whats happening with The Aberdeen Taxi Group at the moment for instance. They seem to be going about things in a properly democratic manner with both sides having strong views on what they each want from the other.

Altogether it looks set to be a pretty lively meeting up there on Monday.

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The higher the fewer.

I tried entering: taxi fare formula in Google and it came up with some interesting stuff from Cambridge, Aberdeen, New York and a couple from Australia. It seems that there, they have the flagfall and then go straight on to the mileage rate, without any minimum distance.

I may be reading that wrong but that's how it looks to me.

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The higher the fewer.

I wasn't really differentiating between capital and running costs, just the industry's overall cost base - ie including both.

What I was trying to say in essence is that in the final analysis economic theory dictates that whatever the fares are or how costs rise or fall then in the final analysis you'll end up earning the same. For example, if fares were increased by 50% without a commensurate rise in costs, then this would seem great at first since each run would be hugely more profitable (assuming no runs are lost) but in the longer run there would be more vehicles operating and you would end up back at square one.

Same with industry costs - if they increase higher than fares then there will be less vehicle to compensate, and earnings will just end up back at square one - the decrease in saloon taxi numbers where WAVs are specified is a case in point.

Of course, theory doesn't always translate easily into practice, and since things like fare rises are usually not that radical and take a long time to work through, then these kinds of trends are not easily discernible.






Quite

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

As I see it, the problem with this approach is that the biggest variable (idle time) is just guessed, therefore the whole formula is skewed by what is essentially guesswork.

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

I understand what you are saying here and it is absolutely true that most calculations to do with taxi drivers fares, hours and mileages are approximations.

However, statistics, and this is what we are talking about here, are based on averages - which is a way of producing useful information from a set of apparently haphazard and varied data.

Take mileage for example: All drivers know that a particular daily mileage is extremely difficult to achieve in the taxi trade, some would say downright impossible. However when it comes to a weekly mileage figure, this is no longer the case and it is now perfectly reasonable for a driver to expect to achieve a (reasonably chosen) target figure on a regular basis.

So now a meaningful daily figure CAN be established by simply dividing that average weekly figure by the number of days. This daily figure, it should be noted, is now no longer a random figure but a stable and valid figure which can now be used in calculations to produce useful information.

The same goes for hours and the same goes for the number of jobs. They can all be averaged out over relatively long periods and then related back again, as usefully accurate figures, to days and hours.

The two figures that are of immediate importance to taxi drivers here, are the hourly speed (in miles per hour) and the gross takings per mile (which is directly related to the fare tariff).

Dividing the weekly mileage by the number of hours taken to cover that mileage will give an accurate average speed, for example:

900 miles divided by 55 hours = 16.37 mph

Dividing the gross takings per week (multiplied by 100 to give pence) by the mileage will give an accurate gross takings per mile, for example:

£750 x 100 divided by 900 = 83.34 pence/mile

These are just two examples from a wide range of figures that can be combined in various ways to establish, for example, how taxi driving earnings, costs and hours compare with the national averages.

And please believe me when I tell you that some of THOSE figures make very interesting reading indeed.[/quote]

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The higher the fewer.

I agree that statistics can never by wholly accurate, but what I think you're referring to is inaccuracies that are not material.

However, what I was referring to was inaccuracies that ARE material to the calculations being made, ie so inaccurate as to render the figures employed largely useless.

I may reply to your post in more depth later, but I can't be bothered thinking properly at the moment!

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