Taxi Driver Online

I think you will find in a short while that this battle is not about you and me or anyone else in the taxi trade for that matter. The rights and the wrongs of whatever side we think we are on will be lost to those who are living in the future and not the past.

The future doesn't need the taxi trade as we know it and it's not that far away.

I think you will find over the next 2-5 years the bubble will burst. Yes, there will always be a value in the plate but how much? The Ph will rise ever faster according to market demand and their ability to soak up the taxi call market. The hail market will be better serviced by the bus service and god knows what else Rickshaws Tuk-Tuks and Taxi busses. It’s all coming to a cinema near you.

It won’t be long before you can text a taxi on you mobile phone and in car Satellite Navigation will make the knowledge almost redundant. Taxi Ranks will become a thing of the past or at least people waiting at them. No one will be waiting on anyone all the work will be covered by the press of a button.

The days of unmet demand being coverd by any increase in the Taxi fleet are coming to an end.

Give it a few years and there will be nothing left to fight over. Your market share will be gone, and any chance of getting it back.


Remember you heard it hear first.

The people working in the Edinburgh Taxi Trade will also change. Scotland is sitting on a demographic time bomb and the Government are importing labour from all round the world to the tune of 170,000 emigrants a year. They will work for a lot less and a lot harder than you to get on in life.

It is predicted that within the next 5 years the country will split into a two tier society. There will be those who will trade items as commodities over the internet, e.g. eBay and they like. And there will be those who will trade people as commodities over the internet, e.g. teacher’s cleaner’s taxi drivers, refuge collection, etc. This society’s manual work force and the way it is operated will change beyond all recognition.

All will be controlled by faceless individuals at the end of a computer terminal somewhere in the country or the world. Information technology will give greater control to conglomerates and multinational companies. You won’t know who you are working for or who you are competing against. This probably sounds all a bit Orwellian but believe me it’s on its way and for the most point is already here. (Think of ComCab, who owns it, where they are based and how many other companies they own? And the call centre in Musselburgh which covers the London area, funny that)

Moors Law states that computer technologies will double every 18 months.

The observation made in 1965 by Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel, that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every year since the integrated circuit was invented. Moore predicted that this trend would continue for the foreseeable future. In subsequent years, the pace slowed down a bit, but data density has doubled approximately every 18 months, and this is the current definition of Moore's Law, which Moore himself has blessed. Most experts, including Moore himself, expect Moore's Law to hold for at least another two decades.

It was said that “Broadband will do for the computer what the light bulb did for electricity”. The future is here and the days of taxi companies bobbing along like rudderless ship on a sea of cash looking for a favourable financial wind are coming to an end. The little committee man mentality has had its day. The Edinburgh taxi trade has been paying out more and more money for less and less work and the simple fact is, it can’t go on.


Doom and gloom, I don't think so, have a look around the only direction the Edinburgh taxi fleet has is to protect the plate value and even that will have it's day.

the market will decide eh!

how can it in a restricted market ?

i sometimes wonder if you understand youre own argument
moron

I knew it wouldn't last

Welcome back Alistdair, I take it the nursery is on mid term break now

So did I

Skull wrote

"They will work for a lot less and a lot harder than you to get on in life"


Story of my life actually, but I am one of the indigenous population


"It is predicted that within the next 5 years the country will split into a two tier society"

I cant remember it ever being anything else

I was placed at the lower end of the lower tier, infact maybe below it, dont they work hard to keep you there.

Having said that, I agree with a lot YOU say too, most of the owners have found themselves in this position thru default and good luck rather than any business acumen,but the answer is not to ruin the trade or the guys that are only working by current rules

how does driving youre own cab ruin the trade? strange how surveys look at demand or lack of, and councils restrict plate numbers when in fact the amount of taxi's is imaterial compared with the amount of drivers actually driving at any given time e:g should i aquire a plate and buy a taxi i would then leave my current rental and drive my own taxi someone may well take up my old rental, but they would have to give up thier current rental.it has nothing to do with vehicle numbers and everything to do with drivers numbers the council could double the plate numbers tomorow and give them only to exsiting drivers and the workload would remain the same and well you know it

overall the system works well,
but there is always room for improvement,

the only improvements you will ever see in the edinburgh trade are more restrictions rules and pressure put on the drivers thier will be no benefit for the trade as a whole and every benefit to the competion

and in time I have no doubt there will be room for more cabs.

you must be the most nieve person i have ever come accross if you believe that, no more taxis ever again this is the last chance salloon the trade has once again played into the the hands of the council and competition its thier trade now .the trade will never get the opputunity to fight back again and try to regain what it has lost to the p.h, buses, taxi buses etc oh and bye the way the council had its reasons for fighting us in court and restricting numbers, but it has nothing to do with protecting the trade that was the last thing on thier mind this i know for a fact!

The market WILL decide,
the market has already decided hence the doubling of ph in the last few years but the taxi trade wont be in a position to respond to any future demand,so once again its off to the competition who can respond but this is what the council and thier partners intended

perhaps one day you will see the big picture and realise that you and people like you ,allowed youre trade to be destroyed from the inside
by a council that is looking at this from a business angle and feeding you excactly what you want to hear.
youre moralistic appraoch and pride in what you are taints every word you say,thats how they control people like you,thier is no room for morals in the business world.

realfarcicalcabdriver
the word colaborator springs to mind when i read youre p*ss

Collaborator with who?

In the Jacobs report it states that there is currently 2.59 drivers for each Taxi so 1260 x 2.59 = 3263 taxis, if, as you guys always say, the PH would switch to hackney and there are approx 800 ph x 2.36 drivers = 1888, 1888+3263=5151 taxis.

Explain to me how this would deliver the taxi utopia you talk about?

eh! it wouldnt

my comments were directed at youre inbred alterego real summit or other im getting confused what a bunch o numpties
i take it you are realfarcecabforum son of realcabforceforum grandson of realcabforce.absolutely pitifull such imagination a rare thing these days.

who said anything about ph coming over to hack? not me!
how they would achieve this without passing thier brief,ill let you explain?

apart from that youre sums are quite amusing! thier is of course more to be considered than mere numbers .try getting an adult to explain it to you! by the way do you know that you have to be over 13 years old to be on this forum?

heres a better scenario for you it takes place 5 to 7 years in the future

800 taxi still restricted no plate value, no work, and being handed back at the rate of 12 per month

2000 ph all the radio work, lower vehicle costs,full of ex taxi drivers,no enforcement, allowed to have singnage, allowed in greenways,allowed on ranks?

thats were its going have a look at whats happening with onward travel, get a feel for the future open yir pigin eyes man

"try getting an adult to explain"


I was but there appears to be none here.

Ali wrote

"heres a better scenario for you it takes place 5 to 7 years in the future

800 taxi still restricted no plate value, no work, and being handed back at the rate of 12 per month

2000 ph all the radio work, lower vehicle costs,full of ex taxi drivers,no enforcement, allowed to have singnage, allowed in greenways,allowed on ranks?

thats were its going have a look at whats happening with onward travel, get a feel for the future open yir pigin eyes man"



It's starting to sound like Anxiety Ali, Anxiety about the future, thing is, nobody can really control it Ali, you cannot plan the future by the past, also Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.

wise words indeed marcus

heres another one more apt for the taxi trade

ive seen the future brother it is murder

as for anxeity i have no vested intrest and have nothing to be worried about
what i am saying is take control or lose it.

"The future belongs to those who prepare for it today." --Malcolm X

all you "reals" have one thing in common an inability to face the music
and retort at least on the same subject

this isnt the poetry section

youll be speakin latin next