Taxi Driver Online

Is it the end of the road for The Knowledge? Challenging test faced by London taxi drivers faces 'extinction' as applications for black cab licences fall by almost 95 per cent in a decade

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... ction.html

It is the famously challenging test faced by London taxi drivers, but The Knowledge could soon be a thing of the past.

Figures show the number of new applications for black cab licences has dropped by almost 95 per cent in a decade, from 3,484 in 2011/12 to just 221 last year.

The decline has sparked fears that the world-famous exam faces 'extinction' unless Transport For London, which runs the system, overhauls the industry.

Introduced in the mid 19th Century, The Knowledge requires drivers to memorise 25,000 streets and 100,000 landmarks within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross.

Successful applicants have to pass up to a dozen interviews with the entire process taking up to four years.

It is the famously challenging test faced by London taxi drivers, but The Knowledge could soon be a thing of the past. Figures show the number of new applications for black cab licences has dropped by almost 95% in a decade, from 3,484 in 2011/12 to just 221 last year

It was immortalised in a 1979 television comedy drama - called The Knowledge - written by the late Jack Rosenthal.

The ensemble cast included Rosenthal wife's Maureen Lipman, Nigel Hawthorne and Mick Ford.

Speaking to The Mail on Sunday, Dean Warrington, founder of the Wizann Knowledge School, one of the largest in London, said: 'Our learning school used to be 3,000 square feet — we're now down to 300 square feet.

'At our peak we would have four to five hundred students a year, but now it's somewhere between 50 and one hundred.

'Four years ago, I told City Hall that if they do not change things then we are not just in trouble, we are going to become extinct. You only have a certain amount of time to make changes and it may already be too late. I hope it isn't.'

Perry Richardson, founder of TaxiPoint magazine, said London's Mayor Sadiq Khan was 'very quiet about publicising the benefits of the taxi industry and the service it provides to London'.

He added: 'In his view, black taxis are not seen as a mode of public transport, even though you are compelled to take anyone that hails you and access within key areas of London is diminishing.

'That attitude feeds through to drivers and is part of the reason why they might say '"don't bother, it's a dying trade". It's not.

'It just needs reassurance that taxis are a vital part of the transport network and if you are going to invest £70,000 into a wheelchair-accessible vehicle, you are going to have a viable job in ten, 15, 20 years' time.'

Graham Robinson, TfL's General Manager of Taxi and Private Hire, said: 'We have seen a decline in people wanting to undertake the Knowledge, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic.

'We are working with stakeholders, including taxi representatives, to look at ways of making studying to be a black cab driver more appealing.'

But Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association, said: 'Is the Knowledge dead? No, it's not. It just needs to be made more relevant to the 21st Century.

'I'm pretty confident that people will realise there's still a good living to be made from driving a cab.'

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IDFIMH

Madness.

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IDFIMH

but it has worked well for years London is a BIG village it takes a long time to learn all the ways about and people trust black cabs to be able to do just that if cabbies stopped taking the knowledge people might decide not to use them as there is no advantage over pirate hire or ufail

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Taxis Are Public Transport too

Join the campaign to get April fools jokes banned for 364 days a year !

Completely irrelevant figures - how can you compare any normal year ten years ago with last year, when supposedly the PCO office was closed a lot of the time, and knowledge 'appearances' were cancelled?

And even if the KoL was just carrying on as normal last year, the pandemic uncertainty would also mean comparing the figures from ten years ago wasn't really a compelling comparison.

And, reading the above paragraph literally, the figures are for 'black cab licences', not driver's badges.

Of course, that might just be the normal journalistic lack of clarity about these things, but who knows.

But, again, if the figures are about vehicle licences, to a degree the pandemic will make the figures even less comparable, because it's easier to mothball a badge while it all blows over, rather than a plate, for obvious reasons. And the ULEZ stuff also makes comparison of plate numbers difficult.

But if you look at the very latest TfL stats, they certainly show plate numbers decimated since they peaked at 23,099 a decade ago. The latest figure is 13,046.

On the other hand, total badges (green all-London and yellow suburban badges) peaked at 25,538, but are currently at 20,786.

Which suggets more drivers doubling up, or perhaps dumping their plate until it's all blown over, but keeping their badge in the drawer (I'm not sure what would happen if a driver surrendered their badge, but decided to reapply a couple of years later - would they have to go through the whole KoL thing again, plus driving test etc? But simply renewing the badge probably not too difficult, as opposed to renewing a plate if you're not acutally driving. Therefore...)

And, of course, the ULEZ rules make plating a cab a whole different ball game, hence the articles a while ago about drivers being unable to rent a cab.

So it's obviously an interesting topic, but the quoted figures are irrelevant, and there's a bit more to it than is portrayed in the article.

And, of course, it's wider still - for example, with Uber apperently surging so much of the time, who'd bother embarking on the KoL if you can start earning big bucks almost immediately?

It'll all take at least a year or two to settle down.

I get that, but the bit that makes me puke is the way applicants are treated by those doing the testing.

They expect the applicants to act as if they were dealing with the Queen.

It's a test of memory, nothing more nothing less.

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IDFIMH