Taxi Driver Online

Not sure what to think of this...


STATE OF THE TRADE: Groundbreaking national taxi and private hire survey launched by TaxiPlus and TaxiPoint

https://www.taxi-point.co.uk/post/state ... lus-and-ta

TaxiPlus, in collaboration with TaxiPoint, has launched a groundbreaking first of its kind national Taxi and Private Hire Survey to help understand the state of the trade.

The initiative seeks to gather valuable insight from drivers across the UK that can be used on an annual basis to better understand and benchmark key industry topics.

TaxiPlus, known for their safeguarding and screening services for local authority licensing teams, annually processes tens of thousands of DBS Checks for drivers. With this survey, they aim to capture a broad range of responses to understand the current state of the taxi and private hire trade.

The survey is comprehensive, covering nine sections including health and wellbeing and industry hot topics. It is open to all UK taxi and private hire drivers and takes approximately 10 minutes to complete. Participants are automatically entered into a draw for a £500 Amazon gift card upon completion.

This neutral and trusted survey aims to reveal key industry trends from a driver’s perspective, potentially influencing future policy changes. Running for ten weeks, the survey concludes on 15 September 2024.

For more information or to participate, visit the dedicated survey page here.

Ryan Sidley, TaxiPlus General Manager, said: “It’s really exciting for us to be able to do something that could help shape the industry that drivers work in. We support thousands through the DBS Check process each year and we often hear of the difficulties and problems facing drivers. Hopefully, the information what the survey reveals can be a source of truth for all industry stakeholders.”

Perry Richardson, TaxiPoint Founder & Chief Editor, said: “I’d urge everyone in the taxi and private hire industry to have their say on their industry.

“Since founding TaxiPoint, I have wanted to launch a neutral survey that captures the real voice of drivers from across the UK. Using this survey I hope the industry can better benchmark what’s working, and what’s not, both on local and national levels.

“If enough drivers take the time to share their opinion this can become an important tool used to influence policy change at Government and local authority levels to make the industry better for everyone.”

Certainly quite a comprehensive set of questions, but as is usual with stuff like this, there's no room for nuance. Eg, I'd answer the LTN question about pollution by just saying that it displaces it rather than reducing or increasing it, but that isn't one of the available options.

Also, there seem to be lots of logical failures in that if you answer No to something (say) then the survey still forces you to answer the next question, and to that extent your answer to the next question is bound to produce an incorrect result (eg you say you've not had safeguarding training, but you're then asked how useful it was - so the best possible option is to say it wasn't useful, but that's misleading...)

Also, for example, it assumes that if you're a taxi driver then you won't be using an app, or you won't be working for a circuit

The thing is the survey results will be used to serve the narrative that the surveyors want.

Be amazed if the raw data is published.

They are also asking for too much personal information. Do they need to know your email address? Your council? Your car?

I think I stopped after that.

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IDFIMH

I gave them the benefit of the doubt re the email address, since they said they needed it for the Amazon gift voucher prize

Yes, to an extent there was a bit too much personal info, but still looked sufficiently anonymised so I did manage to get to the end...

But I didn't really give it all too much thought, and maybe hurried through it all a bit too quickly.

And maybe they'll use the email address to try to sell stuff, or whatever, but if they said that then I certainly didn't notice

I think you will find it's a near certainty.

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IDFIMH

Given that TaxiPoint is a neutral industry publication… what is the narrative?

Simply want to give all taxi drivers a voice for the first time. A FULL report will be drawn together. The report will be publicly available. TaxiPoint is recognised as a trusted source (mainstream news aggregation and licensed content on professional databases like Refinitiv and Moody’s NewsEdge). With a good pool of responses this can be used by authorities and Governments to gauge opinion. That’s the end goal.

We ask for email address (not name or other personal details) to help administer the prize draw and to identify duplicate responses. We ask for the licensing area so that we can filter down to regions and even authorities when reporting. We ask for cars to allow for the reporting of annual trends shown in the industry.

As for further comment about using the data to sell something… we’re a free to read publication and have been since the publication went live in 2017. We have nothing to sell!

It’s an opportunity that has not been granted to cabbies before. Hoping many cabbies will grab that chance.

To be honest, I don't know, but surely you are not as naive to believe TaxiPlus is doing this out of love?

What I would have done to allay any privacy issues is to offer the £500 to those who wished to pass on their email address.

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IDFIMH

Perry, again thanks for the clarification, and I'm sure such a comprehensive set of questions will provide many useful insights.

However, I note that in your response you don't specifically mention your collaboration with TaxiPlus, and instead simply provide the angle from the perspective of a trade-oriented publication.

And I think that's maybe the main reason many people will be more than a tad cynical about the survey - if you hadn't teamed up with a business with a more obvious er, commercial approach and intent towards the industry then I'd guess many people's perception of the survey would have been a bit different.

A little bit more info on this survey should drivers wish to take part.

https://www.taxi-point.co.uk/post/q-a-w ... ver-survey

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IDFIMH

Survey done