Taxi Driver Online

Another chapter and verse piece about a taxi delay, although this time it looks more like ScotRail's fault than the trade's, but who knows? In particular, as regards the trade angle there's maybe an important detail or two missing, as per my suggestions below the article.

But I've had two Waverley drops in the last few months (the latest ironically about three or four hours after the incident below started to unfold), and both times I've almost lost the will to live

No doubt easy enough for drivers who know the locale, but both times trying to get out of the area it's felt like I've been trapped in some sort of space-time continuum

So the whole taxi thing down there strikes me as a tad shambolic, so don't know if that could have been a factor in all of this, but you'd think the local drivers would know the score, assuming it was a local car that was booked to pick them up.

But worst bit for me thereafter was a set of temporary traffic lights that were on red for seven-and-a-half minutes. And guess who was at the front of the queue of traffic with lots of cars behind blasting their horns

And that was at about 8pm

Anyways...


Fuming Edinburgh ScotRail passenger doesn't get home till 3am after taxi mix-up

https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/ed ... t-25591730

The train operating company has since apologised, telling Edinburgh Live they worked hard to find a resolution, including arranging alternative transport for passengers.

A woman has blasted ScotRail after a taxi mix-up at Edinburgh's Waverley Station meant she didn't get home until 3am.

The passenger, who wishes to remain anonymous, says she struggled to locate the taxi, organised by ScotRail staff, after her train home was cancelled due to poor weather conditions.

The train operating company has since apologised, telling Edinburgh Live they worked hard to find a resolution, including arranging alternative transport.

The woman was due to board the 11.09pm train from Waverley to Motherwell via Carstairs on Friday, November 18, when the service was delayed and then cancelled at 11.15pm. Ten passengers were then told taxis would be arranged to take them home and were led to the back entrance on Market Street.

Speaking to Edinburgh Live about the "disappointing" incident, the woman said that she was left standing on a deserted street after she couldn't find a taxi.

She said: "I regularly work in Edinburgh so I travel from Douglas in South Lanarkshire to Carstairs to get the train from there but I was having dinner in Edinburgh that night so I was due to board the 11.09pm service. It said the train was going to be delayed until just a few minutes after that time but then a marshal came and said the platform was changing.

"While we were moving platform he got another message saying it was cancelled but he said it means we'll all get a taxi to our door. I tried to clarify and say that I do not live nearby and that I live 25 minutes from Carstairs station but he said that would be fine. He took all our names, I was with another lady from Carstairs, but he didn't take our phone number.

"He then guided us towards the back entrance and said to wait until each taxi arrived then disappeared. Within half an hour, everyone with us got picked up apart from me and the lady I was with that lives near me. By midnight, everyone had gone but we assumed it had been delayed as we were so far away compared to the rest.

"We didn't want to risk going inside as my friend's phone had run out of battery so if the taxi did show up, I wouldn't be able to phone her or vice versa. It got to 12.40am and eventually we decided that she should go in and if the taxi did come, I'd hold it for us. But when she went back inside, there was no staff and only a cleaner. They seemed confused and said they'd go check with their manager and come back to us outside in ten minutes. 20 minutes later, nobody came back outside.

"By this time is was just after 1am and we were starting to panic as all the taxi's were passing us and asking where we wanted to go not knowing it was hours away. Nobody seemed to know anything about a pre-booked service from ScotRail. Although I know Edinburgh, the street we were on was secluded and there were drunk people passing so anything could have happened at that time in the morning."

The woman said that eventually, a kind taxi driver took her and her friend back to South Lanarkshire and nearly a week on from the incident, they are yet to hear from ScotRail.

She said that as two women standing alone in the dark with phones and laptops, anything could have happened and they were both scared at one point.

She continued: "I tried calling the out of ours number for ScotRail but it cut off at midnight and the other 24-hour number just disconnected straight away so there was no way of contacting anyone at the company.

"Finally I got home at 2.45am after the taxi driver took us home. My husband was furious with the situation so he phoned up ScotRail the next day and demanded someone explained how this happened and made a complaint. After three or four hours they never got back to us with a complaint number and when we phoned back, they said they have a lot of jobs in the queue but my husband said my wife was abandoned in Edinburgh which is a failure in their duty of care.

"They have asked for my account details and a copy of the bill but we want to speak to someone about this to understand how it will be actioned to avoid a repeat in the future. It's not just about the money, it's about the inconvenience and the situation they put us in."

"The spot was really isolated and there were drunk people screaming so to be honest, if I was on my own, I would have burst out in tears and I was really thankful the other lady was with me otherwise I probably wouldn't have held it together."

Phil Campbell, ScotRail Head of Customer Operations, said: “We’re sorry to customers who experienced disruption to their journey on Friday night as a result of the extreme weather.

“Every effort was made to help customers complete their journey, which included arranging alternative transport.

“Mr Chatterley has been in contact with us about his wife’s experience, and we will be in touch with them directly.”

Good job they don't have a distinctive name, or anything like that


Er, Motherwell is 38 miles away from Waverley Station, according to Google. Passing drivers wouldn't have thought it was 'hours away'.

And they were obvioulsy just random passing taxis, which is why they wouldn't know anything about a pre-booked run arranged by ScotRail.

Which, of course, will be self-evident to readers on here, but my point is linked to this:


So why was this driver 'kind' but the others weren't? Maybe the others were worried they wouldn't get paid by ScotRail and would only do cash runs?

And wouldn't be surprised if the Ladies (as in Lady Chatterley ) eventually decided to pay the cab out of their own pocket and seek recompense from ScotRail later. Which is maybe why they eventually found a 'kind' driver.

Which indeed is consistent with this later passage:


All of which may seem a bit anoraky, but as regards the crux of the article, they might have got home a lot earlier if they'd paid for a taxi out of their own pocket and then tried to get it refunded. Of course, initially they probably felt obliged to wait and see if the booked taxi arrived, so a degree they can hardly be blamed.

bored operator didn't send the required number of vehicles or Scotrail didn't order enough tricky to prove unless conversation was recorded and saved

But someone should have been there to make sure they were picked up very unprofessional

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

probably could have found her taxi very easily if they had kept the rank at the front of the station instead of moving it to some non de scipt locale
From expereince covering exactly this kind of work,scotrail just call the cab company and ask for whatever amount of taxis they want,
work gets dispatched,work gets covered, never any problems getting cabs to do the jobs ,methinks the balls up is at the train company end

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i started out with nothing and ive still got most of it left

The mess up was entirely down to the train company.

Quite why a member of their staff couldn't have remained with the punters heaven only knows, especially when at least one of those punters was a lone female.

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IDFIMH

Well, we (Chester licensed Hackney Association) don’t do any of the call outs for Chester station anymore. After the Fraser eagle debacle years ago we refused to deal with third parties and eventually Arriva set an account up with us and paid direct (eventually!). All the staff had to do was walk to the front of the station with the customer and the docket and off we went. If there were no cabs on the rank (very unusual) they had a list of numbers to call) Roll on 10 years or so and they decided to outsource the work to another third party, CMAC, who have/had very strong links to, guess who ?