Taxi Driver Online

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http://www.taxi-driver.co.uk/dundee2.htm

Taxi Driver Online

The Dundee saga goes on..................

I think a de-limit, on the basis of new HCs must be WAVs, is on the way. The ground work is being done by the council. I don't think they want Dundee Private Hire to gain the new plates on their own. They want everyone to have the same opportunities.

And is there anything wrong with that?

what good is a survey if its been sitting for so long?dundees private hired section has been booming and everyone is still making money if the survey was accurate and with dundees population dwinddling nobody would be making money since the 507 limit there has been approx 130 private hire appeared i thinkits difficult to get figures from the council

there was an arcticle drom dundee dta accusing the council of sitting on the survey in the dundee courier about a month ago i cant find it but to cut a long story short they denied it and that seems to be the end..

No Sussex Man, but if the new plates have to be WAVs then that won't be "everyone having the same opportunities", will it?

If they want rid of the plate hiring and the like then they won't do it by deregulating if they leave the current saloon plate as they are.

They would stay at 500, you might have 100+ WAVs, and the hire plates and the like would reduce, but the majority would continue as is. The cost of hiring a plate would probably reduce as well, but I doubt if £40 quid instead of £50 a week would make them give them up.

What you outline is better than what's there at present, but there's no way it would sort out the other problems.

CC

Yes, that report was mentioned in our original article on Dundee, Scotty, in fact it was the T&G according to the paper, but no doubt the DTA were bleating as well!!

CC

here is the dundee draft report,for some reason it wont dowload on my computer ?maybee there on to me?
http://www.dundeecity.gov.uk/taxi/main_complete.pdf

That's what generally happens when the number of taxis is controlled Scotty, a big PH sector develops in its place - if it wasn't 203020 in Dundee then they would just be with the taxi offices.

Look at Glasgow for example, 1,428 taxis, but there are 2,000 plus PH cars, which is typical of big cities.

So there really aren't all that many PH in Dundee, and that's because you've got a lot of taxis for the size of the city.

There are places in the UK about the size of Dundee with just a fraction of the taxis, but they have huge private hire numbers.

Someone e-mailed me some figures for some English towns a few days ago, maybe they could put them up for comparison.

So if the number of taxis had been 200 in 1980 for example and Dundee had never been deregulated, they might have released maybe 50 after surveys since then, so there would be 250 taxis, but there would be 400 PH maybe.

The surveys are rigged in favour of the existing plates.

CC

the report which is also a cosultation was only handed out to a few operators so i was informed by the council but the only person iknow who recieved it by post was a driver, the rest of us have to download it from the councils website all replys have to be in this week they are estimating as many as six returned forms but this cant be verified untill recieved..

It's a big file Scotty, it took me about half an hour to download it. If you just click on the link it'll take ages to appear.

It's better to save it on to your computer - if you put your mouse over the link, then click the RIGHT HAND mouse button, then select the SAVE TARGET AS option.

You can then save it to a folder on your hard drive.

The window will show you how long the download is taking.

If you have broadband it should only take a few minutes.

I hope you've got the Acrobat Reader installed on your computer, because you need this to view it.

CC

What, you mean that they didn't send the 160 page report to all of the 1,700 taxi drivers in Dundee?

That would only be a quarter of a million pages or so, it would only decimate one or two Amazon rain forests.

CC

160?the drivers report i seen had 35 pages and this has been circulated all over dundee i hope the dta have got originals and then decide to inform their members?that means 79 deduct the hired plates 49 no wait what about the operators who dont drive their cabs and let their four drivers on income support drive instead he wont have tax returns cut that down to twelve ,by the way the 35 pages was not a joke ill get back to you tomorrow....

Well the downloaded report seems to be about 160 pages Mr Scot.

It's roughly:

- 12 pages of stuff from the council official reviewing the position overall.
- 120 or so pages for the survey. This includes submissions from taxi firms, disabled groups etc.
- 20 pages is the judgement in the 203020 court case.
- Another 10 pages or so is other stuff from mainly about WAVs, from disabled groups, the Dept for Transport in London, and there's a copy of the Dundee licensing conditions.

A damn good read methinks!!

Dusty

OK here are some figures for cities in the South of England, in order of population.

The population figures probably won't be too accurate, and the vehicle figures are probably a bit out of date, but it does show what CC is on about.

Slough 108,000 HC 66 PH 712
Reading 145,000 HC 138 PH 400
Dundee 150,000 HC 507 PH 130
Swindon 177,000 HC 138 PH 468

No prizes for spotting the odd one out!

Most places won't control numbers so tighly as the likes of Slough, but there are a few, such as Luton, but I doubt if there are many with a bigger HC per population ratio than Dundee.

Wait a minute though, did someone mention Aberdeen???

Dusty

The thing is CC, is that the council, in fact most councils, will look for middle ground. The fact that out of thin air the disabled have been mentioned, is in my view laying the way for the middle ground.

I suspect the existing trade will welcome this instead of de-limit, and some non HC owners will prefer this to driving a PH. Especially as it seems that the survey found no sig un-met demand.

If this fair, of course not. But Rome wasn't built in a day.