Taxi Driver Online

The P&J have obviously put a bit of effort into this, and I was going to include all the photos (including a pretty pointless photo of a driver, who looks like he's on holiday, rather than leaning on his taxi; and a stock photo of an Uber car), but they're all very big, so have just included the links if anyone's interested.

Anyway, while I'm sure it's of interest to the average P&J reader, for people on here it's largely a rehash of many of the usual issues. The piece covers a lot of bases, such as the usual airport exclusivity stuff, the more general driver shortage, the need for Uber in Aberdeen and airport drop and pick-up charges for the general public.

And while the premise for the piece seems to be someone who waited 30 minutes for a car (shock, horror), it seems like waits can be a lot longer. Surprise, surprise. Similarly, one source says drivers in Aberdeen are down 25% post-lockdown, while another source says it's 50%


Aberdeen Airport taxis slammed after traveller forced to wait 30 minutes for cab

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A passenger who was forced to wait 30 minutes for a taxi at Aberdeen International Airport has slammed the current situation as “rubbish”.

Martin Findlay, from Aberdeen, was returning to the airport after a holiday in Italy last night and tweeted his despair at the situation.

He said the first thing people have to put up with when they come into the country is a long delay, and it needs to be fixed.

Mr Findlay said: “Nothing like a 30 minute wait for a taxi at the end of long travel day. More for some. It’s not like arrival of planes with passengers is a surprise . How about fixing this Aberdeen Airport and Aberdeen City Council?

“It’s literally the first thing visitors encounter. It’s rubbish yet fixable.”

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Aberdeen Airport, which is located in Dyce six miles from the city centre, responded to Mr Findlay’s remarks.

Replying on social media, a spokesman said: “Unfortunately at times when we have busy flights arriving at one time, it can be challenging to manage the peak.

“We are also in the midst of a recruitment drive for more drivers to join the fleet.”

Lack of taxi drivers – airport ‘can’t be blamed’

Since the start of 2020, Aberdeen is said to have lost 25% of its taxi drivers, with many of them leaving jobs to find work elsewhere or to retire.

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Aberdeen taxi driver, Kevin Sherwin, said he “sympathised” with the city’s taxi drivers, on social media, he said: “500 drivers left during Covid, but there is solutions if the council would listen.”

Graeme Giles also blamed the pandemic for the shortage of taxi drivers, adding: “Covid decimated the taxi driver numbers and over 50% left. That’s not on the airport and they can’t be blamed for that.”

Jamee Kirkpatrick from Aberdeen, who works as a PR and communication account director in the energy sector and is a frequent user of the airport, responded by revealing that she no longer uses airport taxis.

In her tweet, she said: “The airport having several arrivals at the same time, combined with their decision to operate their own taxi service is just poor planning and money grabbing.”

Back in January, the airport announced it was increasing it’s drop-off zone fee for non-electric vehicles, increasing it to £4 for ten minutes.

‘The infrastructure to support it is terrible’

This was the third increase in in the last six years – with charges first doubling to £2 in 2016 and later rising further to £3 in 2019.

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Miss Kirkpatrick added: “It’s £4 to collect, ludicrously expensive to park and while there is a 24hour bus connection it services a tiny portion of the city, so nearly useless. For an international airport the infrastructure to support it is terrible and aimed at making the airport more money.”

In June 2018, the airport launched its own taxi services, having previously contracted Comcab to provide them, with the airport believing that running it themselves would allow them to “manage it more closely”.

‘If the service cannot be provided, we need Uber’

The constant delays at the airport, Scotland’s third biggest, has renewed calls for Uber to be introduced in the Granite City, with Nicola Gardiner posting on Twitter: “I too waited for 90 mins at midnight in the freezing cold.

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“If the service cannot be provided, we need Uber. I’ve also collected a relative and offered elderly tourists a lift at the same time, as no taxis.”

In 2017, the San Francisco based ride-hailing company was granted an operating licence to provide its services in Aberdeen, however, they shelved their plans in 2019.”

‘We are currently in the middle of a recruitment programme for drivers’

A spokesman for Aberdeen International Airport said: “At times we have a number of flights arriving at the same time and during peak timings we thank passengers for their patience.

“To help deal with this we are currently in the middle of a recruitment programme for drivers to join our fleet and would encourage anyone to get in touch if they wish to apply.”

There are threads on here covering many of the issues above, such as the driver shortage, the knowledge test and whether to water it down, Aberdeen Airport taking the rank contract in-house rather than using Comcab as an intermediary, and Uber shelving plans to start in Aberdeen despite getting a licence there.

Anyway, obviously the article quotes another person who seems to think that Uber is being kept out of Aberdeen for licensing reasons rather than actually shelving plans to open an office there. And, of course, with Uber's UK expansion now dependent on the Autocab trojan horse, even in the unlikely event of Uber coming to Aberdeen, it would just be a case of rearranging the deckchairs, so wouldn't change the airport situation a whole lot, nor the related issue of a more general driver shortage in the city.

And possibly worth reiterating maybe why Uber u-turned on plans to set up in Aberdeen. Or at least this is my opinion on it all, because I don't think Uber's detailed reasoning was ever publicized.

Anyway, first is maybe that there's historically been quite a stiff knowledge test for both HC and PH drivers, so the easy-entry/gig economy route not quite so feasible for Uber in Aberdeen.

By the same token, in Scotland you can't work cross-border in the way that Uber does in England, by getting drivers badged and plated in the likes of Wolverhampton to work elsewhere. Of course, you can take passengers across borders in Scotland, but you can't station cars outside the licensing council area to work cross-border on a permanent basis.

Finally, I think the offices in Aberdeen are mixed HC/PH, and all use meters. Which if fitted in a PHV, have to be set at the HC tariff in Scotland, so no surge-pricing possible. I'm not sure if Uber could actually run PHVs in Aberdeen without a meter, and thus allow surge-pricing, but pretty sure that at present the mainstream PHVs all have meters running at the council's HC tariff

Anyway, that's enough for now, but Uber pulled their plans for Aberdeen a few years ago, so chances of them starting there now are approximately nil

Exactly where would Uber (even if they could be arsed to) find all these extra drivers from?

The trade’s problems in many areas, if not all areas, is basically the trade and the way it works.

And that’s not going to change in our lifetime.

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IDFIMH

Indeed, but I think some people are still a tad starry-eyed about Uber, and believe it's reinvented the taxi world, and they believe the marketing hype and branding bull$hit. Particularly, perhaps, in the likes of Aberdeen, where most won't have experienced Uber at close-hand.

Of course, to a degree Uber did change the taxi world, particularly in the likes of London, where the HCs were expensive, and the minicab market was messy.

But it was partly driven by the app booking process, partly by cheap subsidised fares, and partly by a ready supply of cheap and pliant labour via immigration.

And, of course, to a big degree the sheen has come off the hype. And, for the reasons we're all familiar with, the decreasing gap between Uber and the mainstream trade has become more apparent, as have the similarities.

And apps are everywhere, both in the traditional trade, and with the Bolts and Olas etc.

But Uber had 'first mover advantage' with the app and automated booking, card-only payments etc, and to that degree they'll always enjoy some sort of residual legacy in terms of popular perception. And this is demonstrated by those in Aberdeen who still think Uber in the city would be some kind of major game-changer.

A 'local cab' Autocab-style tie-up would maybe demonstrate to some people that the end product is essentially same-old, same-old