Taxi Driver Online

Have you read the PH overprovision section of the survey you linked to earlier? It's only a couple of pages, and if you want to read about if/but/maybe hypotheticals, then that's where to go

But of course my analysis is hypothetical, and that's why I said so - I was hardly trying to portray opinion and hypotheticals as facts, surely?

So if you want to address the specifics, both in terms of numbers and dynamics, then I'm all ears

But thanks for providing the link to the document - I hadn't read a PH overprovision assessment before (if only because there's only one council in the UK that does one ).

At least it does deal with driver/vehicle ratios. But, in the round, it might as well have been written by current fleet owners, circuits and individual plate owners, who are deemed to represent 'the trade'...

And it also confirms a lot of what I said above, but obviously from the perspective of justifying the current numbers and/or the numbers it thinks are appropriate in terms of overprovision etc.

But, in the round, it looks like little more than coming up with a number that's a matter of opinion as regards what represents overprovision.

And, of course, totally ignores the simple question of the equity of excluding drivers from driving their own vehicle

Link to study below - just had a quick look, and may have a deeper look at the nitty gritty in time, but have written enough about this over last few days

But the main PH overprovision assessment seems to be section 8.4, and is only a couple of pages

https://onlineservices.glasgow.gov.uk/c ... Z3DXZ3UTZ3

Indeed, everything you say there is bang on.

But bang on from the perspective of fleet owners and plateholders generally.

I'm a grassroots driver at the bottom of the pile, thus tend to take the side of individual grassroots drivers rather than fleet owners.

And why should politicians, councillors and officials pander to the latter at the expense of the former?

Probably because no one ever actually asks them - although the coverage in the Glasgow press maybe suggests that questions are now starting to be asked in that regard

On the other hand, if you look at the table on page 10, it's totally the opposite, because it completely ignores driver/vehicle ratios, thus the comparison figures are utterly spurious. Not to mention ignoring other factors that could influence the comparative figures between the individual areas.

To take an obvious example, there's no mention of the cross-border dimension in England, which means the PHV figures in each area aren't comparing like-with-like...

And it's a pity they didn't include Wolverhampton on the list, which would have shown over 100 PHVs per 1,000 population, compared to 7.7 in Glasgow

But which would have at least demonstrated how totally spurious the comparisons are

The Scottish-only table on page 9 is just as bad - the numbers just can't be compared like that in any meaningful way.

I mean, I'd guess that of well over 100 cars in the St Andrews area, at least 80% would be HCs and 20% PHCs.

But if HC numbers had been capped 40 years ago rather than 20 years ago, I wouldn't be surprised if current numbers had panned out the other way round - 20% HC, 80% PHV

But even that's an oversimplification - there are quite a few more PHVs here, but they're mainly doing specialist airport transfer and chauffeur-style work, so do you count them or not? (And, for the reasons of comparison tables, I'd guess a higher proportion of our PHVs are doing such work as compared to PHVs in other areas, thus again undermining comparison figures.)

And within the tables, our Fife zone is shown simply within the overall figures, which are totally different in the other Fife zones in terms of comparisons.

And it's a good job they didn't include *badge* numbers - in many council areas there are effectively (or literally) zero PH badges - because you can drive under both codes with an HC badge, and if the barriers to entry are the same for both badges, no point in issuing PH-only badges at all.

But, to that extent, in the likes of Perth & Kinross you can't tell whether there might be 100 drivers in HCs, or 200 drivers in HCs, or whatever

The HC badge holders could actually be driving HCs or PHVs - you simply can't tell which from the official figures

I’m also a ‘grassroots’ driver - one cab, one plate. I invested my £ and I’m not at the bottom of any pile.

I see HC/PH caps as an attempt to match supply with demand, based on the 2023 review methodology (as documented and updated). What’s your alternative? And what do you see as ‘equity’?