Taxi Driver Online

UK Newsquest Regional Press - This is Local London

August 9, 2006 Wednesday

HEADLINE: Taxi fares up as costs soar

BYLINE: Victoria Allen

DATELINE: Redhill And Reigate Life

Taxi fares are to rise from this December, reflecting the surge in petrol and insurance prices this year.

Reigate and Banstead Borough Council agreed the increases following requests from the Reigate and Banstead Taxi Association. The cost of a one-mile ride from Monday to Saturday between 7am and 10pm remains the same but a two-mile journey is now ten pence more at £4.80. At £10.20, a five-mile trip has risen by 40p, and ten miles in a cab, which was priced at £18.30, has gone up by 90p. Evening journeys will now be charged at 125% of the daytime rate.

Dudley Price, a taxi association committee member who helped to draw up the proposals for the council, said: "The ten pence increase that we requested has been approved and realistically it does not make a tremendous amount of difference to the fare. These rises must be put in the context of the massive increases in the price of fuel and the fact that insurance has gone up too."

The hackney carriages in operation around the borough do not tend to be hailed in the same way as black cabs in London and so have to return to taxi ranks, often empty, after each trip. Other constraints are also squeezing drivers. Mr Price said: "The council has created an age limit on the number of years that a vehicle can run, which did not exist before. A London-style purpose-built hackney carriage with a particular kind of EU approval is allowed to run for up to ten years from its first year of manufacture, but if it does not have this, it must be off the road in seven years. This is irrespective of condition or mileage."

He added that the ceiling on the age of vehicles was not a requirement in other local authority areas.

He believed most taxi drivers in the borough were earning less than the minimum wage and another worry was the Disability Discrimination Act, which had led to the council's target of having all taxis accessible to wheelchairs by 2010. He said: "These are substantial increases in cost that the trade cannot afford to absorb."

Cllr Tom Stoddart, the council's executive member for leisure and healthy living, said: "A comparison of fare charges throughout Surrey shows that Reigate and Banstead will be in the middle of the fare table of the other boroughs and districts after the increase has been applied."

But for some drivers, even a modest increase in fares may be too much because they fear an accompanying fall in the numbers of people using taxis. A council spokesperson said the higher evening charge had been introduced to attract more drivers and increase the availability of taxis at night. But Mr Price argued that this often left taxis waiting around for people to hire them.

He said: "If you are going to increase the number of taxis, it has to still be a viable job for the driver. At the moment there are too many vehicles in the borough." The new fare table, showing the maximum charges now in place for taxi rides, will be advertised and there will be a 14-day period for objections.
.............................................................