Taxi Driver Online

No, of course you and 'the majority if not all the other drivers' would much rather pay double or triple for their licence fees. You'd all prefer reduced hours for renewing badges and plates, you'd like one premises instead of two, you'd like more officers pushing pens behind counters instead of tackling piracy out on the road, you'd like queues out the door and round the block like it used to be back in the Irlam Rd premises before Sefton got their act together. Why not write all these magnificent aspirations into the constitution of a new 'shoot yourselves in the foot' trade group so that you and your buddies can lobby the council for a better future?

What greed? Where do you get this idea from that SMBC make more money from having more drivers... are you making this up as you go along??? It doesn't matter whether SMBC licenses 20, 200 or 2000 drivers, they never make a penny, as they charge only what it costs to deliver their licensing portfolio. Thanks to the efforts of your operator (Delta), you enjoy the best deal from any licensing authority in this country, and you're slagging them off and berating anyone who passes on credit where it's due?

The figures do not include bookings which are entered then cancelled before dispatch, or bookings which are entered, dispatched and then cancelled before arrival. But if a booking is entered, dispatched and the vehicle arrives at the pick-up location, our report counts it as a job even if the driver doesn't get mobile. So the figures do include no-shows (bogeys) which these days average between 2 and 3%. Our bogeys used to average between 4 and 5% many years ago but with better staff training and improved technology such as Ring On Approach and Screen-popping (where the CLI of the customer generates an on-screen address) we have been able to maintain the current low of 2-3%. Of course that average is misleading, as a driver working quiet days may do 20 jobs one day with not one bogey (0% rate) whilst a pub-and-club-night-driver might get 3 bogeys out of 6 bookings and go home with frustration (50% rate), but the average across the fleet is the one we use as a key performance indicator and that's currently 2-3%.

The same complication arises when looking at driver numbers (or jobs per driver). There's about 1680 drivers currently registered at Delta but typically 10% are off the road in any one week for holidays, illness, car trouble, disciplinary suspensions etc. Some of our working drivers with major financial commitments might batter the road at the most unsociable (and hence profitable) hours and take 200 jobs/week off the system. Some of our more senior drivers however (who haven't worked those kind of shifts for perhaps 20 years or more) are now pretty much semi-retired, with no mortgage left to pay, their car is paid for, their kids and grand-kids are all working. They can afford to pootle about of a daytime through the week and take only 50-60 jobs a week off the system. The range of work from one extreme to the other might leave the fleet with an average of 115 jobs/wk but that's not to say every driver does 115 jobs/wk.

Taxi drivers can either earn a decent living or work sociable hours, they can't do both! Some drivers (like Dagger) will no doubt fit their hours around their bread-winning wife. Unfortunately, we can't generate customers to the same timetable. Many of our drivers who started on nights then slipped onto days have found since the recession they have had to go back on nights again to make their money. A change in hours, a change in company, or even a change in local authority or working area, are always options for professional taxi drivers, whereas the same cannot be said for the many factory, construction and retail workers for example who simply woke up one morning without a job.

If, as 'Dagger' suggests, there is so much unrest amongst drivers for the poor return on their £85/wk circuit fees, then now might be the perfect time for them to start a nice little £50/wk co-operative of driver-focused owners... and instead of using market forces to encourage drivers to work when they're needed, they can all draw straws...

Precisely, they are allowed, i.e. the conditions of licence in your area permit this. The conditions of licence in Liverpool do not.

I wasn't questioning the condition itself, merely the 'selectivity' of which conditions officers were choosing to enforce. Councillors are voted in to decide conditions, officers are paid licence fees to enforce these conditions. If we're talking value for money, then surely officers should enforce ALL the conditions, not just the palatable ones.

...just make sure there's only one large office for one large fleet and you maintain maximum efficiency.

Absolutely. If I say on this site that 'SEFTON OFFERS THE BEST LICENSING DEAL FOR DRIVERS', I'm expressing an opinion, not an evidential fact.

Sefton licensing committees have historically tended towards COMMON SENSE rather than TRADE UNION PROTECTIONISM

So you don't like profiteering and protectionism, but what about SMBC's restricted taxi numbers policy?

Just when I was thinking you werent all bad, you prove yourself to be a t***.

ffs

CC

Well it takes one to know one - sore point?

Just when I was thinking you werent all bad, you prove yourself to be a t***.

ffs

CC

I can't see what's wrong with the question - particularly when PH operators indirectly benefit from the policy by expanding their sector

The drivers are taking a pretty bad hit at the moment with rising costs and reduced work levels.

The staggering sums of money we have re-invested in training

Has it ever occurred to your company to reduce the settle for a period of time until the trend reverses?

Competition is so fierce amongst them that vehicles are available, fully licensed, maintained and insured for as little as £140 per week. That's £20 cheaper than 6 years ago.

we remain Europe's busiest and fastest growing taxi operation, with some of the longest standing, most experienced and highest paid support staff workers in the business