Taxi Driver Online

http://milton-keynes.cmis.uk.com/milton ... 5vVA%3d203

Limit is 138 plates but their are i think around 200 plates?
I dont think many people will give plates back to council but most will just sell on,
I know of recently a cab with plate sold for 12k but the cab value was alone 10k.
Also since the last survey rank hires have dropped from 6053 to 2416 over the course of the few days surveyed?

Milton keynes was probably the first place in the Uk to get swamped with drivers and has had major problems ever since I doubt there has been any unmet demand there for over 30 years

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

Indeed, if plates still have a value then they won't be handed back, thus no chance of numbers reducing to anywhere near the 138 limit if there's still willing buyers out there.



Of course, if demand for taxis at the rank completely collapsed (because of a huge increase in app hires, most obviously) then that would be a whole different ball game, and to that degree more plates would be handed back.

Which the numbers you quote would seem to indicate, but I can't see the 6,053 figure cited in the current survey, so are you sure 6,053 rank hires last time to 2,416 this time is comparing like-with-like?

Haven't read the whole survey, but suspect that if demand at the ranks had collapsed in such a fashion then that might have been mentioned in the document.

2014
Observations
The trade consultation suggested that the majority of Hackney Carriage drivers picked
up between 4 and 8 hires per day from ranks. When we take the estimated weekly
hires from all ranks, at 6,053 and divide by the number of active Hackney Carriages
with valid licenses at the time of the surveys (190), This equates to an average of
approximately 32 hires per week, per Hackney Carriage.

2017
Overview of observations
During the course of our survey, some 2,416 vehicles were observed
departing the ranks, with passengers. This equates to approximately 13
hires per vehicle (with a fleet size of 192) over the three days of
observation. With this level of utilisation, there is not sufficient demand for
all of the fleet to operate from purely rank based demand (with an average
of around 4 hires per day per vehicle). Therefore it is likely that many
vehicles also participate in undertaking pre-booked hires, either as part of
a Private Hire booking circuit, or through personal direct hires, by
telephone, or indeed, through regular contract hires.

Hi Jack, looks like the 2014 figure is an estimate based on the whole *week*, although it's not entirely clear where the figure comes from.

The 2017 figure looks like it's from three days of direct rank observations. So for a whole 7 days that would work out at 5,637, so not that much less than the 6,053 estimated in 2014.

Of course, that's assuming the number of hires over the three observation days is similar to that on the other four days, although presumably it's not precisely the same, but of course many of these figures can only be estimates, as indeed is specifically stated regarding the 2014 figure.

Milton keynes Station taxi rank ques filmed by a driver.

Taxi rank fulled inside the station

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYsN-YLxkEs

Taxis parked outside the station waiting to get into the main rank.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=481LPrG5Tl0

Certainly looks bad, but unlikely to change if plates still commanding a resale value and drivers not handing them back.

On the other hand, 190 HCs doesn't seem much for an area of almost a quarter of a million people. Aberdeen has probably fewer people, but around 900 HCs

Edinburgh less than double the population of MK, but over 1,300 HCs

As for the MK survey limit of 138 HCs, St Andrews in my zone (East Fife) probably has approaching that kind of number of HCs, but with a population of only 20,000 or so

Of course, a big difference is that St Andrews has very few PHVs compared to HCs, while MK has something like 700

700 + around 1,000 ph from Northampton and Aylesbury.

I drive a hackney in mk and yes the work is really bad esp the station in the morning when i used to work days i had to rank up at 6am at the station and get a job around anytime from 7am - 8/9am for average £5-10 could get lucky sometimes a £20+ then after that looking at average 1 to 2 hours wait throughout the day.

the only work which it their is the weekends as the club ranks have business but during the week the main only rank is the station, sometimes youll get their at 6/7am and theirs ques upto 150 cars waiting, the rank in the shopping centre or xscape theirs hardly any trade as the bus system in mk and also all the parking we have.

i know work a shift of 11am till around 11/2am average takings i would say are around £70/80 a day weekends £100/150 depending on hours you work.

yes cabs are selling but their isnt an actual value at the moment most cabs selling at cab value and a little 1/2k ontop for plate aswell, saloon plates can fetch around 15/20k but all in the work is really hard quiet too many cabs, out of town ph, ph blagging + ph low fares etc etc all in hard to make a living at this current rate.

yes if plates was to decreased to 138 and the limit was kept then itll be okay but for now all we can do is wait.

I once tried to drop a passenger off at Milton Keynes station you couldn't get near it for the local trade blocking it up

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector

Thanks for info - all sounds pretty awful.

Had forgotten about the cross-border aspect, but just underlines what was said recently in another thread about high PH/HC ratios.

If the 138 HC figure suggested by the survey was implemented, and there are 1,700 PHVs operating from various areas, then that would mean about 12 PH to every HC, perhaps the highest such ratio in the country, for a large urban area at least

(Meant to reply to this at the time, but only remembered about it when I saw you posting again in other threads.)