MR T wrote:
So you're arguing that ranks should be fully manned 24 hours a day whether there is work or not............. somehow I don't really think anyone would accept that as being reasonable.....

I'm not arguing anything of the sort, I'm drawing the conclusions of the real world and the unreal world, which is part and parcel of the propaganda spoken by those who live in the unreal world and I have no need to point out who those people are?
Do you recall what Mr Damien Edwards of Liverpool City Council told us about the double shift system?
“I have a fear that if you increase the number of hackney carriage drivers there will be no surplus to double-shift vehicles, and that may impact on the availability of taxi cabs at peak periods, despite having more vehicles.
Or Mr Roger Sealey of the T&G
I was talking to somebody today who was saying that there is significant unmet demand at night now because taxi drivers are working the day shift and there are not sufficient working the night shift because the market has been derestricted.
And our dear old friend Mr Peter Kavanagh who said:
It is very much the case that in areas like Manchester and Liverpool that now have a restricted system there is what we call the double shift and even sometimes three shifts in a day, so that vehicle is actually "used around the clock".
So its patently obvious that these people were talking about cabs working around the clock as Mr Kavanagh points out.
I don't know what your opinion is now? But we certainly knew what it was then? If you would like to put a different spin on the double shift system and explain what you think it means, then by all means do so.
Regards
JD