Taxi Driver Online

Right to exclude trespassers.

Railway undertakers are entitled to forbid unauthorised persons to enter or remain on their land in the same way as any other owners of land and, if a person not using or desiring to use the railway enters on to an undertaker's premises and remains there after being requested to leave, he commits a wilful trespass.

Undertakers may exclude from a station all persons other than those who use or wish to use the railway. Even though an intending passenger has a right to enter a station, a person conveying or accompanying that person to a railway does not necessarily have a right to enter the station.Where an undertaker licenses one person to ply for hire on, or otherwise use its premises, no other person carrying on a similar business has any right, without licence, so to do.

The system of admitting only privileged cabs to ply for hire at railway stations has been abolished in London.

1 Perth General Station Committee v Ross [1897] AC 479 at 492, HL, per Lord MacNaghten. As to trespass see generally TORT.2 Perth General Station Committee v Ross [1897] AC 479, HL; Hole v Digby (1879) 27 WR 884, DC.3 See Barker v Midland Rly Co (1856) 18 CB 46, where an omnibus proprietor seeking to enter a station with an omnibus bringing passengers was excluded; approved in Perth General Station Committee v Ross [1897] AC 479 at 492, 493, HL.4 Beadell v Eastern Counties Rly Co (1857) 2 CBNS 509; Hole v Digby (1879) 27 WR 884, DC.

When only certain cab owners were privileged to ply for hire within a station, a non-privileged cabman refusing to quit on request was held guilty of a wilful trespass: Foulger v Steadman (1872) LR 8 QB 65. Where a cabman who brings a person to a station has concluded his business he must, on request, leave the station or else he is a trespasser and may be removed by force: Wood v North British Rly Co (1899) 2 F 1, Ct of Sess.

However, the Office of Fair Trading has ruled that undertakers must allow every licensed taxi to ply for hire at a station subject only to physical restraints and on payment of a reasonable fee.

'Railway station', in the London Cab and Stage Carriage Act 1907 s 2, includes the precincts and approaches to the station: s 2(3).6 See ibid s 2(1). Undertakers are not to show any preference to any cab in respect of admission to stations in London and any charge made for admission must not exceed the sum allowed by the Secretary of State: s 2(1).

The Secretary of State has power by order to modify or suspend the operation of s 2 where he is satisfied that it would not be possible otherwise to provide a sufficient supply of cabs at the station: s 2(2). As to the Secretary of State see para 2 ante. Nothing in this provision affects the liability of cabs or cab drivers to comply with undertakers' regulations for maintaining order and controlling the traffic, for limiting the number of cabs admitted at one time, for excluding unfit cabs or drivers or for expelling drivers guilty of misconduct: s 2(4).

Certain London station premises are deemed to be streets for the purpose of the obligation of the driver of a hackney carriage to pick up passengers: see the London Hackney Carriage Act 1831 s 35; London Cab Act 1968 s 3(3); Transport (London) Act 1969 s 17(1), Sch 3. As to cabs plying for hire see ROAD TRAFFIC.
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And we all know why the Railway was allowed to charge a reasonable fee in the first place, dont we, now everyone has jumped on the band wagon charging taxi drivers

THe fee was first brought in because the Hackney cabs horse drawn was fouling the area, a reasonable fee was charged to cover the cost of a man to clean up the horse muck