Taxi Driver Online

Council reveals St Andrews taxi measures to stop visitors being ripped off

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/fi ... rews-taxi/



Fife Council is taking action to ensure St Andrews taxi customers are not taken for a ride.

A number of measures are being implemented following claims rogue operators are ripping off visitors to the home of golf through inflated fares.

Extra spot checks and better advertising of correct prices are among the actions pledged.

Local taxi operators have welcomed the proposals but want licensing chiefs to go even further.

James Glen of St Andrews Taxis said: “This is a good start but they have a long way to go to resolve the issues.

“We would like to see secret shoppers so unscrupulous operators are sanctioned and removed if need be.

“And we would like taxi wardens in the ranks on a Friday and Saturday night.”

Measures to prevent over-charging in St Andrews

Discussions between St Andrews taxi firms and Fife Council’s licensing staff were held at a meeting of a new forum.

It was set up in the wake of concerns some unscrupulous cab drivers were charging tourists way over the odds for journeys.

Examples included a £40 fare for a trip between Leuchars railway station and the Old Course Hotel, which should cost between £12 and £15.

The council will now ask Scotrail to put up posters showing the correct price at the station.

Miscellaneous licensing lead officer Gillian Love said information will also be included in any relevant tourism communications.

Council introducing extra spot checks

Ms Love added: “Following the meeting of the new St Andrews taxi forum, we’re implementing a range of measures.

“We’re keen to ensure locals and visitors to the area have the best taxi experience possible so we’ll continue to work with the taxi trade.”

Other action includes:

• A survey of taxi operators on taxi rank provision in St Andrews town centre
•The introduction of a business card for taxi operators to hand out encouraging the public to tell licensing staff what they think about their journeys
•The standardisation of taxi inspection regimes across Fife
• Extra spot checks

Mr Glen added: “The more proactive they can be the better for taxi companies and, most importantly, for customers.”

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IDFIMH

based on Stuarts video he posted the other night wouldn't that be overkill or is it to prevent vehicles being shat on by seagulls

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

Thought Stuart would be all over this thread

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

Whatever would make anyone think there was a problem with gulls crapping on the cars in St Andrews

Stephen Seagull - don't mess with him

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

I was trying to bait him.

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IDFIMH

I can't access the site the vast majority of the time, and fed up with disconnecting, reconnecting, different networks, various workarounds, copying drafted posts into Word in case they disappear, etc etc.

Don't know what the issue is, but it's relatively recent. I'd guess it's because I use mobile phone tethering all the time to access the net, because no-one else seems to be having the same issue.

But I use two separate mobile networks, and although one was working well enough when the other one started playing up, now both of them are basically doing the same thing.

And no problem accessing other sites, so not sure what the particular problem is with this one

Where to start with this? Basically the survey asks if there's adequate rank space and if there's a problem with illegal parking

Well, no - there are regularly 10-20 vacant cabs in town trying to get on less than half that rank space because it's totally inadequate, and a lot of the time hoaching with illegally parked cars. Mainly earlier in the evening, but on Wednesday night at 9pm I counted eight illegally parked cars on the main ten-car rank

And it's been like that for the 20 years or so that the rank has been in operation, give or take.

Don't know if they're just totally clueless, or it's just PR/deflection kind of stuff. But they did propose making the whole street a rank about 10 years ago to help with enforcement issues, and that go as far as committee, and that was after a fair bit of work into two alternative relocation proposals.

So what they're needing to survey about, precisely, is anyone's guess

I mean, this is the actual survey here:

https://forms.office.com/pages/response ... e=shorturl

It's a like asking the Pope's religious denomination, sort of thing. Or like that recent DfT quote to the Manchester Evening News:

They are no longer accepting responses.

But even though I couldn't see the survey I'm 100% certain it doesn't meet the Gunning requirements.

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IDFIMH

Deffo viewed the survey last night when I posted at 9.30pm, so I'd guess the form expired at the end of August

(Although I'm not sure if there was a formal end date.)

Anyway, I didn't bother responding, both for the reasons above, and because it basically asked two simple questions which required a tick-box response, and a more open question but in a tiny little response window, which I don't think would be suitable for my book-length I'd ideally like to submit. (Or that would be my views on the subject, but I simply wouldn't submit it to the council, full stop.)

As for the rank marshal stuff, as I've said before (and as Edders obviously appreciates), it's not marshals we need rather than parking enforcement of some kind because illegally parked cars plague the main night rank.

That's not to say that we couldn't do with marshals to control queuing drivers and instilling a bit of order, but marshals are normally more about scenarios where there are disorderly customers queuing for significant periods, which just isn't a thing here.

Anyway, the proprietor of the firm shouting about the marshalls is the sidekick of the person who wrote the following (which I quoted in another thread in a slightly different context):


So what's the point of marshals if there are no punters to control, and the firm advocating for marshals wants a driver free-for-all on the ranks?