Taxi Driver Online

There's been a lot of discussion about two-tier and single-tier systems, but what does this mean?

Well from where I'm standing it would encompass HC and mainstream PH, but not things like chauffeur drive, limos, wedding and funeral cars etc.

Whether or not the latter group would require licensing under a single-tier system is a moot point, obviously, but they wouldn't be so much a second tier as a different system altogether.

So talk of a single-tier system in fact needing two tiers because of the need to encompass limos etc is a bit wide of the mark because it's a different market rather than simply another tier of the same market.

A decade or so ago the TGWU (now Unite) used to propose the following (they may still do, but I haven't read their stuff for a few years):

"New legislation for a one-tier taxi system with a legitimate tightly regulated PH provision."

Which at first glance seems a bit daft, but what I assume they meant is that the one-tier system would encompass current HCs and current mainstream PH/minicabs, so the limos, chauffeurs etc would become the residual PH sector, but couldn't really be called a second-tier because they're operating in a different market.

The only way I can see a truely single tier is if all the vehicles are the same, which then takes customer choice, needs and wants away

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

Which indeed sounds a bit like the LC's argument for retaining two tiers and for bog standard PH regulation.

Thus if peope want to phone for a bog standard service and pay a cheap and cheerful price then that's up to them and that's what the market will deliver.

By the same token, if customers want to phone for and pay more for a better service then that's their choice as well, and the market will deliver that as well.

But which sort of undermines your argument in favour of quality control in the PH sector?

Seems great in theory except if all the market provides is bog standard ph then chances are that is all that will be available. Of course you may be suggesting that some drivers on the circuits may provide a better standard of vehicle, which is true because I know I would, but the customer won't know what type of vehicle they'll get til it turns up. Also the customer won't know what standard of driver they'll get either if the LC down grade driver standards to bog standard as some of the drivers will have knowledge and others, the newer ones, won't

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

Yes indeed Toots, and that's where the LC's theory perhaps doesn't work quite so well in practice.

I think they think the PH sector will essentially divide itself into Lidl/Tesco/Asda/Sainsbury's/John Lewis/Waitrose/Harrods-style markets, with worse/better quality products grouping themselves together into different cheap/dearer price bands.

Of course, to an extent the PH market does work in the way the theory describes, but to an extent also it's all a bit of a mishmash, with highly different standards being offered at the same price from the same provider.

Perhaps one problem in that regard is the one that CC alludes to with his Darryl Biggar quote about networks, and that's basically that they can become local monopolies with a single dominant provider, or a small number of large operators between whom competition is stifled, for whatever reason (or oligopoly as the economic theorists put it).

However, and although I haven't got to that bit of the LC's report yet, I suspect it's the usual fairly crude analysis of PH responding to market forces and thus justifying only light-touch regulation. Or at least that's what the bits of the report I've read so far suggest, but that's generally what every other simiar report I've read on the subject seems to conclude as well.

The limousine industry campaigned for a seperate licensing system for limos for years. At every point they were told that they had to conform to the legislation that was in place, no seperate form of licensing would be allowed.

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Grandad,
To support my charity text MAYORWALK to 70085 to donate £5

I sort of share Mr Button's view.

A one-tier would encompass virtually all of the trade save for novelty cars, stretch limos, bikes and horses.

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IDFIMH

The problem is that in my experience punters don't.

They phone the firm they have always done, unless they have been let down. So service is the key.

I don't think the LC realise how many people access their vehicles via freephone, or some other third party ordering for them. Other than long distance work price very rarely comes into it.

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IDFIMH

Well I haven't read Mr Button's views on the subject, but they seem to effectively accord with my own. As indeed any common sense approach would, in my opinion.



On the other hand because B&H is singe-tier-ish - and another major factor in this regard is meters in PH charging the HC rate and both working from the same offices - then to that extent there's no real separate PH sector and thus no scope for competition in price, so people can either take the fares on offer or leave them, ie effectively the same as on the average taxi rank.

On the other hand, where there's more of a distinction between HC and PH and the latter don't have meters then perhaps there's more competition regarding fare levels. In Doom-land, for example.

It depends a lot on how the local market is structured and regulated. And if the LC have their way there's more chance of a more distinct Doom-esque second tier developing in places like B&H, with attendant fare discounting.

Indeed the limo licensing bit has been a bit of a shambles from day one, the basic problem being the need to shoehorn something new into the existing regulatory regime, with the VOSA/LA split merely confusing things, and then the mish mash of approaches from the latter in particular effectively looking like hundreds of regulatory rabbits caught in the limo headlights.

Of course, because in effect the LC has been presented with a blank canvas by government then the new system will presumably be better able to accomodate stretch limos, but the problem with these things is that they take so long to implement that the likes of the limo industry is probably now in long-term decline before they're really doing anything new and radical to cope with it.

If down graded national standards for ph is the 'light-touch regulation" then I would prefer the 'so light you won't even notice it's changed approach'

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Note to self: Just because it pops into my head does NOT mean it should come out of my mouth!!

Being on the same tariff and using a meter isn't single anything tbh Dusty, the distinction is one is there to serve instantly and the other on demand by way of communication,

And for the record I believe all fares and methods of charging them should be the same on a regional structure, competition is good in the right circumstances but not when you are chewing bone already.