Taxi Driver Online

Well this is utterly fascinating

Almost didn't read it when I saw the headline (the second article below) because it looked like a bog standard cab office planning issue (noise, parking problems etc), but turns out it was an application for a booking office licence.

Which is basically the Scottish equivalent of a PH operator's licence in England (although up here it applies to both HCs and PH).

And which perhaps explains why there were 663 objections - what's the betting that the vast majority of the objections are, er, similar in nature.

Then found the earlier article, which underlines that it's basically all about protectionism as regards the joint monopoly enjoyed in the town by two long-standing offices (a duopoly, technically speaking).

But like PH ops in England, there's no direct limit on numbers of booking operations up here, but looks like the council has used planning considerations to effectively protect the duopoly


TOA and Alpha Taxis join forces over Renfrewshire Cab Company plans for Johnstone office

https://www.the-gazette.co.uk/news/1788 ... ne-office/

HUNDREDS of people have backed a bid to put the brakes on plans for a new taxi office in Johnstone.

Renfrewshire Cab Company has made an application to open the booking office in the town’s High Street.

Councillors will decide on the fate of the proposals tomorrow, at a meeting of Renfrewshire’s regulatory functions board.

However, a total of 663 objections have been submitted to the local authority, with Johnstone Community Council among those to voice concerns.

Drivers at Johnstone TOA and Alpha Taxis believe opening the office is an attempt to monopolise cab trade in the town.

One 36-year-old cabbie, who asked not to be named, told The Gazette: “We believe these plans are just an attempt to create a monopoly in Johnstone and to destroy two firms that have been in the town since the 1970s.

“The fact more than 600 people have submitted objections shows the strength of feeling among people in the town. There are people here who are very loyal to us.

“As it stands, there’s nothing to stop someone who wants to use Renfrewshire Cab Company from doing so. They can just pick up the phone and call.

“There’s no need for an office in Johnstone and I would say the site they’re looking at is in a bad spot. There have been several accidents there and you’ve got to wonder where all the extra cars are going to go.”

While not objecting to the plans entirely, the town’s community council has also raised concerns about the proposed location of the office.

Community council secretary Iain McMillan said: “We are not opposed to a local business which employs local people opening an office but we do have concerns about the location.

“It is bad enough at the moment and, while I don’t want to scaremonger, it is particularly bad for accidents.”

Tomorrow’s meeting will be held in the council chambers at Renfrewshire House, in Paisley, with the public excluded from attending.

A Renfrewshire Council spokesperson said: “An application for a booking office licence will be considered by councillors at the upcoming regulatory functions board.”


Protestors halt Renfrewshire Cab Company plans to open taxi office in Johnstone’s town centre

https://www.the-gazette.co.uk/news/1789 ... wn-centre/


Tom Wallace (inset) backed the decision but was not wholly against the idea of another booking office in Johnstone (Image: The Gazette)

CAMPAIGNERS have succeeded in their fight to put the brakes on plans for a new taxi office in Johnstone.

Renfrewshire Cab Company – the area’s largest private hire taxi company – had applied for the green light to open a booking office at No. 21 High Street.

However, the proposals attracted 663 objections, with concerns raised about the potential problems more taxis could cause in an already congested part of the town.

And, at a meeting of Renfrewshire Council’s regulatory functions board on Thursday, the application was refused.

Tom Wallace, chairman of Johnstone Community Council, believes the decision was the right one.

He said: “We didn’t so much object as raise points of concern. We were concerned that’s a bad corner – there are cars parked right down to the edge of Dimity Street.

“You try to turn into that street and it’s like a single-way road, when it is in fact two-way.

"We were concerned that taxis parking would cause a nightmare at that corner.”

There are currently two taxi firms operating in the town – Johnstone TOA and Alpha Taxis.

Mr Wallace emphasised the community council had not taken a stance against Renfrewshire Cab Company but rather the specific location in the High Street.

He added: “We don’t want to stop businesses in the town but that wasn’t a good placement for a taxi office.”

One driver from a rival firm said he fears Renfrewshire Cab Company will resurrect the plans before long.

The 36-year-old cabbie, who is from Johnstone but asked not to be named, told The Gazette: “We are delighted with the decision and it’s great to see that the council listened to our concerns but we’re in no doubt that the applicant will be back soon with better lawyers.

“There’s no need for another booking office in Johnstone. It would only disrupt two firms that have worked in harmony here for 40 years.”

A spokesman for Renfrewshire Council said: “An application for a booking office licence in Johnstone was not approved, as the regulatory functions board found the location of the proposed premises was not suitable.”

Renfrewshire Cab Company declined to comment.

So a joint monopoly accuses another firm of attempting to monopolise the trade?



So if the public are so loyal what's the problem with another office?

But suspect the vast majority of the 600 objectors are part of the trade monopoly (or friends and family) rather than members of the public.



So the trade's objections all about protectionism, essentially, while council saying the location of the premises not suitable

To be honest I'm not up to speed on the law here, but would have thought that the council's reasons for refusal would have related to a planning application rather than for a despatch operation licence.

I would think that the planning application can be appealed.

_________________
Grandad,

Indeed, but can't see any mention of a planning application.

So if planning permission has been granted then licensing councillors are basically overturning that using planning considerations.

Whatever's happened, the two processes should surely be separate, and licensing councillors here seem to be second-guessing the planning committee.

Well that makes no sense whatsoever.

_________________
IDFIMH

Nice cosy arrangement where, I suspect, drivers are not allowed to change firms and work is divvied up between the firms.

This has got nothing to do with a new operator, and everything to do with keeping drivers on the existing two companies.

_________________
IDFIMH

Can see their point in a way - basically fearing an Uber-style scenario. Or Tesco in the shopping context. Thus crushing the smaller opposition and creating a monopoly.

Don't think there's any 24-hour filling stations outside Dundee *city centre* these days (except on the outer ring road/trunk road) - previously quite a few, but suspect Tesco closed them down with their cheaper 24-hour filling stations and all-night supermarkets close by.

But once all the 24-hour Shells and BPs closed down, Tesco stopped opening their filling stations 24 hours as well, arguably abusing the monopoly they created.

Of course, by the looks of it here the current joint monopoly will have made it difficult for start-ups as well, so maybe case of pot calling kettle black etc.

But where is the world does anyone have a taxi/PH monopoly?

_________________
IDFIMH

Indeed - true monopolies rare in practice, and state monopolies like nationalised industries probably the most obvious example. (And no more likely in the real world than what economists call 'perfect competition'.)

Remember the days when if you wanted a phone in your home you had no choice but to join a GPO* waiting list, and had to wait months for installation? But at least you could choose the colour, as long as it was black...

But outside the economics textbooks people use words like monopoly and monopolise in the looser sense, so basically alluding to power in the market, and the possibility of abusing it.

So in the town here there's a duopoly, and in similar circumstances the two could get together to effectively create a monopoly, for example by fixing prices for airport runs or contracts. Or as regards abuse of suppliers, blackballing awkward drivers, in today's climate most obviously those who as much as show an interest in Uber/Ola, or whoever, as other recent posts here demonstrate. (Not that I'm suggesting that the offices here are doing that sort of stuff, just that the theory holds that the duopoly makes it easier for them to do so.)

But in the average town or city the situation is more likely to be one of 'oligopoly', thus a handful of dominant players, which makes it less likely they'll maybe actively collude on something, but because there's only a small number of players then to that degree competition is distorted.

So they might not collude on airport prices, for example, but they won't discount because if they do then they know the others will just follow suit, while if they raise their fares then they know they'll just lose out to the other offices. Because they're relatively small in number, they know what they're all doing, while if there are more players in the market there tends to be more competition, because they can't watch each other so closely.

(Mabye the most obvious example of oligopoly is the big supermarkets, ie Tesco, Asda, Morrison's and Sainsbury's. So I recall a few years ago now (when I took more of an interest in these things) that there were big complaints and inquiries about them abusing their market power in relation to farmers supplying them with produce - the farmers could only sell their produce to a couple of the big supermarkets, so they had them over a barrel, effectively.)

So at one extreme there's monopoly, at the other extreme there's 'perfect competition'. But these extremes are really just theories found in economics textbooks and don't really exist in the real world. In reality most markets are somewhere inbetween, and it's a whole lot messier.

*For younger viewers, this was the General Post Office, before it was split into the Royal Mail/Post Office and British Telecom.

I suspect it depends on what the dominant PH model in the town is. Some places have fully employed drivers working in set shifts, others go down the paying weekly settle and the driver keeps the fare model.

I think the latter model leads to fewer, bigger players in a town because there is very little cost in adding another driver to your operation. so they tend to get quite big. We've got a population of about 120k and two big ops each with several hundred cars. There's a couple of small ops but they're specialising in airports and 8 seat work, you can get away with undercutting the big boys when you have enough work to get up and down jobs to the airport. The two incumbents managed to see off Uber, you'll never see a locally licensed car working for Uber and you might see 2-3 Sefton or Knowsley cars trying their luck (Uber have a local Op licence).

It's one of the reasons I'm interested to hear that Ola are HC compatible on their app, there's enough HCs here that aren't affiliated with either of the PH ops that they could offer a genuine challenge, cos they're gonna have no PH cars due to blackballing.

I think you’ll find there is one in the city, a beige 3008, he must be part time because we only see him at the station now and again.

Kind of shows how effective they've been at stamping it out. I've seen a couple of cars from the Port but that's about it.

I'm shocked someone on their way out of the trade hasn't tried their luck taking one of them to court for minimum wage and holidays, the way they'll pull your set if they get a whiff that you're working for another op gives lie to their drivers being self employed.

For what it's worth, did this on the rank the other night, put it in my drafts to check the figures later, but then forgot about it



I'd put money on both the offices in Johnstone being the weekly 'settle' model.

Indeed, the TOA one I'd assumed to be owner-driven HCs (Taxi Owners' Association), while in fact their website says they're PH. But Owners' Association still suggests owner-drivers, and in fact their website has the bog standard permanent 'drivers wanted' style of page, thus suggesting self-employed drivers:



Johnstone's population is less than 17,000, so probably broadly similar in size to the town I work in. Here the bigger offices are 10-20 cars max, and no paid employees here, although drivers do work set shifts, to a greater or lesser degree, or at least there's certainly some kind of rota.

But I suspect with just two dominant players in Johnstone they'd be a few dozen cars each maximum.

Which in turn makes the 663 objections to the licence application seem even more odd than if it had been in a town or city with hundreds of cars.

But apart from all that, there's certainly plenty of evidence of the two firms 'working in harmony', as one of their drivers put it, quite apart from this concerted objection to the incomer.

So the TOA website states:



Well that's a funny coincidence

Don't think that kind of obvious collusion is allowed, strictly speaking, but there you go.

And they've both got exactly the same surcharge at exactly the same time - what are the chances of that?





On the other hand, although they both charge £2.80 for the first mile, thereafter TOA fares are slightly steeper, until for example, for 15 miles:

TOA - £22.40
Alpha - £21.00

(I'm assuming the prices on their websites are the current ones)

Which again is the odd thing in view of the lack of competition between the two that's evident - these fares are brutally cheap.

15 miles in Fife is about £37 on T1 and £46 on T2.

So here we're something like 80% higher on T1, and over double fare on T2

The company applying for the office licence in Renfrewshire is a lot bigger than the two currently based in Johnstone - 500 drivers it claims. Seems to cover the whole of Renfrewshire, while the two objectors seem to operate mainly in the town Johnstone.

Suspect applicant already does plenty of work in the town, so the booking office is probably the new feature here - the applicant probably wants walk-up work, while obviously the two incumbents won't want that.

But the applicant is definitely the standard owner-driver/settle model, according to the recruitment page on their website:



The applicant's fares seem a bit higher, though - they're charging 80p more for the first mile, and their 50p surcharge applies every night from midnight to 4am, and they've also got an additional 50p surcharge for those hours at the weekend, and also 50p from 7pm to midnight Friday and Saturday. But their mileage charge is similar to the two incumbents, so on long runs probably not a whole lot of difference between all three.

So although it would be a fair guess to assume that the duopoly's objection might be something to do with undercutting of fares, that doesn't actually look to be the case here. So probably as much about continuing to carve the work in the town up between the two and trying to keep an incomer out