Taxi Driver Online

Driverless taxis are coming !

Taken from cab4now.com , the comments on the link are interesting.

http://cab4now.com/happy-christmas-minicab-and-taxi-drivers/




Another year has passed and I would like to take this opportunity to wish all my readers a very merry Christmas and a prosperous new year.

2013 has been a busy year for me personally and an even busier one for the Cab4Now blog.

My travels this year included 4 months in Asia, two months in Malta and the rest of the time was spent here moving London with Addison Lee once again.

The Whistleblower joined the Cab4Now editorial team, a taxi and private hire booking facility was added powered by our friends at UbiCabs and 6 sponsored posts were published by 247AirportTransfer. Thanks for your support guys.



I continued publishing my thoughts on the brave new world of taxi and minicab booking apps Hailo, GetTaxi, Uber, Wheely and DRiVR. Kabbee also featured and there will be some others such as Minicabster (Formerly AnyCabs) and German startup BlackLane which will feature next year.

I also published my serious concerns about London Gatwick’s drop off area. My registration was taken again on Tuesday 10th December by the regular APCOA official acting on behalf of Gatwick Airport Ltd. I made him aware of this blog and he confirmed that there had been reports of my videos at Gatwick Airport and he stated that he was not happy to be featured. I advised him that if he wished to be removed from Cab4Now.com he could make a comment here and I would remove any material relating to him. At the date of this post no such request has been received so I can only assume he has had a change of heart and is happy with his new found notoriety.

I mentioned that I am still waiting for my 3 “parking fines” to be received and he said that they are saving them up and they’ll all be sent at the same time. He also informed me that Gatwick Airport Ltd are considering banning drivers from Gatwick Airport who regularly ignore their drop off arrangements. He mentioned injunctions. If this is true it shows that Gatwick Airport Ltd really does hold its customers in utter contempt. The management are also failing in their duty of care to ensure that their customers can drop off and collect passengers safely without having to pay usury parking charges or being coerced in to paying unlawful “fines.”

On a brighter note 479 comments have been published on the 53 posts over the last 3 years and I thank everyone who has contributed. It’s great to have you all here and thanks so much for your comments. The most popular post remains Addison Lee – A Driver’s View In 2012 and another rather aptly called Addison Lee – A Driver’s View In 2014 will be published next year.

Then, of course, there’s you. My reader. Thank you. Just for being here. Cab4Now.com now attracts over 50,000 unique visitors every month and monthly page views exceeded 1 million for the first time in November 2013. A nice early Christmas present for me.

The blog is going from strength to strength with Channel 4 and the BBC asking Cab4Now.com readers to participate in industry related programmes and it has also become a point of contact for advice on driving a minicab in London and, of course, hundreds of questions on Addison Lee.

I have mentioned before that whilst many questions come via the Cab4Now.com contact form the best form of interaction is by asking a question on a relevant post. This helps everyone. Nothing is too contentious and I do not believe in censorship. All comments are published immediately when you sign in with any social platform I use in an attempt to make sure you’re genuine.

So, what does 2014 hold for London’s minicab and taxi drivers?

Uber with UberX, UberExec and UberLux now growing quickly will treble their owner driver base, DRiVR may start to find enough work for it’s owner drivers and Wheely may move in to second gear. Hailo will acquire GetTaxi and Addison Lee app bookings will double to £100 million. The numbers of new potential London taxi drivers starting the knowledge will fall significantly. The Law Commission will recommend local authorities be given the power to establish private hire ranks at busy times where there is unmet demand on safety grounds.

Will these predictions come true? No doubt I’ll be reminded this time next year.

Looking further ahead, these are challenging times for all drivers on both sides of the fence. In London particularly. Google has made a significant investment in to Uber. Carlyle Group has acquired Addison Lee. There is no shortage of venture capital for Hailo.

Google, Carlyle and others have not made these investments lightly. Why is there such interest in the London minicab and taxi industries from so many major players? I believe both London taxi drivers and London minicab drivers should be considering other revenue streams now.

The legislative and regulatory framework for driverless cars will be in place very soon. It is part of the National Infrastructure Plan. There is no doubt whatsoever that driverless minicabs will be in London in a few short years. Some would say that’s a good thing.

Traditional small minicab circuits will disappear because Uber and Addison Lee having cut out the driver will then be able to offer a premium service at a price point which is lower than any local minicab circuit. Fewer and fewer people will use London taxis because they simply cannot compete on price. London taxi drivers will become a novelty exclusively for tourists.

Hailo will compete and offer driverless vehicles too. Why wouldn’t they? The option will remain to book a London taxi with a driver but that will be, mostly, considered unnecessary. Due to this sea change the London Knowledge will be dumbed down significantly and one of the great London traditions of the London taxi driver with an encyclopaedic knowledge of London will, sadly, pass in to history.

There will be two or three global operators of driverless vehicles in London and the shareholders, private equity companies and venture capitalists in partnership with TfL will be handsomely rewarded with huge profits generated by tens of thousands of driverless vehicles circling at every corner.

The London minicab driver and London taxi driver will disappear. Perhaps London will be a safer place? Just make sure, as a driver, as all private equity companies do, that you have an exit strategy. To not do so would, in my opinion, be considered foolish.

Finally, on a brighter note, I’m off to Malta for a few weeks soon and I’m looking forward to quality family time. I trust you are as well.

Stay lucky and safe wherever you are.

And why would an Addison Lee slaves opinion mean anything?

This is the bloke that hangs around car washes in an attempt to speak to real London cabbies.

Weird bloke.

Maybe so but can you ignore the worlds third largest private equity firms(Carlisle group) investment in Addison Lee and Googles biggest ever investment in Uber ?

http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/22/google-ventures-puts-258m-into-uber-its-largest-deal-ever/

The quicker the better,

I haven't.

I've watched them lose over a thousand vehicles of their fleet.

I've also watched as 50% of Minicab drivers don't bother to renew their permits after 3 years.

Dress them up with whatever fancy names you can think of, you're still left with a group if foreign nationals and sat navs, most of whom struggle with English.

It's quite amusing really.

How do you say "saarf o' the river? wot, this time o' night guv" in Romanian?

La Sud de raul guv, acest timp de noapte guv.

A rather odd observation. There's only one car wash I use in London. If we have met please share with us where it was.

You speak English? Wow

That's a first for the London Minicab industry.

Since you're on here, perhaps you could explain to the forum the wonderful turn over of staff Scabbison Lee have, their wonderful 3rd world driving skills, and best of all why they take something like 50% of a cc job from the slave?

What a cracking lot, where do I sign up?

You haven't answered my question yet sir. You haven't shared with us which car wash I hang around in an attempt to speak to real London cabbies.

I take it that we haven't met so you are relying on a third party opinion? Not a problem. Just like to know. I inferred from your comment that we had met because I would not refer to anyone as weird unless I had seen them on TV, heard them on radio or met them in person. Then I feel I would be entitled to my considered judgement on an individual. Each to their own, I guess.

If you made the comment simply based on someone else's opinion then I will leave others here to judge who is weird. I have spoken directly to 6 London taxi drivers for longer than 5 minutes in 3 years. The only car wash I use in London is rarely visited by London taxi drivers. There's a clue. Which one is it please? Answer that and I'll answer your further questions above.

Many of your questions will probably be answered at http://cab4now.com/addison-lee/ and there's an updated post called Addison Lee - A Driver's View In 2014 being published there on 20th January 2014 on the second anniversary of that post if you choose not to answer my question.

The above makes as much sense as your question about real licensed Taxi drivers requiring a PH license to take advanced bookings . . .

As for the car wash, it was you, you seemed to take great delight in showing me your twitter feed and asked me if I was following @cab4now. Leake st if I recall? But I use many . . .

As much as I'd love to 'follow' a Minicab driver . . . I don't.

Correct.

No idea. But I do know hundreds of self employed London minicab drivers have been with them for over 10 years and many over 20 years. Also, many return. The grass is not always greener elsewhere.

Driving skills are better than many London taxi drivers because their knowledge of London covers a far wider area and are not watching pavements looking for the next fare. Many London taxi drivers are part time and as the average age of London taxi drivers increases every year taxi driving standards decline.

Swings and roundabouts. They take a flat £1 day or £2 at night on any cash job regardless of value. Lower commission than any app which is why they're the largest cash circuit in London.


Hundreds of green badge taxi drivers started with Addison Lee. There are also several licensed green badge taxi drivers who are employed at Addison Lee. Give them a call.

I have information that this cab 4 now geezer is just a management plant ......................anyone care to verify that ie a GRASS

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Well, they were offered union representation, but none if them seem to have a backbone between them.

It's like a desire to be enslaved to a Tory millionaire forever.