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September 9, 2007 Sunday
Group in plea over taxi access
Rebecca Wright
Bradford Telegraph And Argus
A disability action group is calling for changes to be made to the city's taxi service after conducting research into its wheelchair accessible vehicles.
Bradford Access Action (BAA) carried out research in spring 2006 to assess the availability of wheelchair accessible taxis and the quality of service provided by their drivers.
The main issues which arose from the report were the ratio of wheelchair accessible vehicles (WAVs) to regular saloon-style taxis and the lack of disability awareness displayed by drivers.
The research found that the average waiting time for a accessible taxi, at either the city centre's Bank Street, Interchange, Lower Westgate and Norfolk Gardens ranks, and the rank at Morrisons at Five-Lane-Ends in Idle, was 15 minutes.
The testers found there was never a need to wait for a saloon taxi but, in all but one case, testers had to wait for a WAV, with 30 minutes being the longest wait.
On seven out of nine occasions wheelchairs were fastened, but most of those times the fastenings were fixed incorrectly and deemed as unsafe by BAA.
There was evidence of overcharging on three occasions, which only happened when the tester was facing the rear of the vehicle and unable to see the meter.
Information was gathered from a questionnaire, which was completed by 15 mobility impaired people, while three wheelchair users also carried out 12 test journeys using five city taxi ranks.
The project was held in response to an invitation by Bradford Council asking district disability groups to carry out research to illustrate problems they encountered in the area.
The report was presented to the Council several months ago, but Jill Grant, a member of BAA, said the group was still waiting to hear how and when changes will be made in light of the findings.
She said: "Certainly we need more access taxis. David Mills (The head of Bradford Council's Hackney Carriage Unit) came and answered questions for us early in the summer.
"But we are still are waiting; we need to Council to act now. They have got this result and now we need to see them in action," she said.
A Bradford Council spokesman said: "The report will be held before the regulatory committee at a later date, which will discuss whether to take things any further."
She said 26 WAVs licensed by the Council were currently on the district's roads.
There is an agreement in place to have WAVs replace ten saloon-style taxis every year, with all new vehicles after 2010 being the non-saloon type.
As reported earlier in the Telegraph & Argus, a crown court judge recently ruled that the Council's self-imposed restriction of 224 taxi licences was illegal.
The decision came in the case of Bharjis Qayum, who had been denied a disabled taxi licence.
The decision resulted in scores of taxi drivers taking part in strike action in the city centre because of fears about an increase in competition and a resulting drop in pay.
The spokesman said Bradford Council was still taking legal advice in light of the ruling.
Mrs Grant said BAA had welcomed the ruling, and said the group was anticipating more WAVs would licensed as a result of the court decision.
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