Taxi Driver Online

Call to slash New Year taxi fares

A TAXI trade body has admitted customers are paying too much on New Year’s Eve. The city’s Southampton Hackney Association (SHA) is calling for festive fare hikes to be slashed to win back customers.

In August, councillors threw out a bid to reduce the Christmas and New Year rates for the city’s white hail-and-ride cabs, which are currently double the daytime fares.

But the SHA has vowed to try again in coming months when it puts in a fresh request to raise everyday fares. Chairman Ian Hall said customers had been complaining about the steep prices since hikes at the turn of the millennium.

“It’s absolutley ridiculous,” he said. “The fares at Christmas and New Year are far too much and they are frightening the public away. We have lost a lot of customers.”

Mr Hall said some unscrupulous drivers were “overcharging” customers when the higher rates come in which was “giving the trade a bad name”. A survey by the SHA found 56 per cent of respondents thought the Christmas and New Year tariffs were too high.

One-third of the city’s 480 Hackney carriage drivers and proprietors responded to the questionnaire, which also found 97 per cent wanted to be properly consulted on fare structures each year.

SHA wants the festive rates to be one-and-a-half times the daytime fare and revert to starting at 8pm instead of 11pm, which was brought in last year. The higher fares run until 6am the following morning.

The confessions come as city councillors are looking into the service given by the city’s taxi trade as part of a nighttime economy inquiry. Panel member Councillor Warwick Payne said he was alarmed that 19 out of 20 people using Southampton taxis weren’t happy with the service, according to a recent report, and price was the main complaint.

He said: “The fact that the taxi fares are twice what they would usually be is probably one of the reasons why more people are staying at home this year.” The present day fare starts at £2.20, then goes up by 60p for the next 330m, then 20p each additional 225m or 45-second wait.

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IDFIMH

So, their fares are fixed rather than maximums; Otherwise the drivers could just say, '£10 on the meter, give me £7.50.'