It would seem that many L.As up and down the country are having a rant about the age of vehicles!
In Cardiff for instance; back about 7/8 years ago we had approximately 450 hacks (mostly saloon) with the age for say a London style cab being 10 years, followed up by plating after that age (I believe) every 6 months for some time afterwards until it basically fell apart.
Today we have over 960 hacks the additional 510 being WAVs (mostly 6/7 seaters)!!
Now here is the thought - the work have been cut by OVER half because now they have introduced 6/7 seaters increasing the seating capacity from the original of say 400x 4= 1600 + 50x6 = 300 giving us an approx original seating of say 1900! we now have an additional 510 mainly 6/7 seaters + a mix of doblos giving us say a plus seating capacity of another 3000 seats
As you can see we now have seating for over 4600 passengers in one hit diluting the work by approx 66% ( the figures are not totally accurate but you can see where I am going), plus we have the recession that has had a bad effect meaning even less work.The question being is why are associations still talking to the L.As about 10/12/14 year life spans on vehicles, of which was the criteria 7 years ago......................when we are now doing probably overall 50% less mileage/usage.
On the basis of usage - we should with good reason be talking about using them for longer.
Any thoughts?
