Taxi Driver Online

oh here we go again... OK if you say so

As a Hove cabby I was over the moon that they delayed Brighton coming in.

I still do far more radio work than path jobs!! But then on a circuit that averages 18,000 / 20,000 jobs a week then what would anyone expect!
Scanner

Well that may or may not be the case, but I have a good idea what punters want, and that's nothing more than to be taken from A to B by a fully licensed vehicle.

However, the bit I can't work out about the need for zoning, is surely this is evidence of a thick taxi trade.

I can't believe that taxi drivers are going to sit on their bots, whilst custom is required elsewhere. By saying that as the custom isn't two yards away from them, they don't want it, is plain stupidity.

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IDFIMH

No, that's not the case. But it's nice to get a reaction to a gee up.

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IDFIMH

I bet you didn't object to your plate value tripling.

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IDFIMH

Sussex
how many examples fo you want?
Every authority that has de zoned has seen taxis go one way- to the centre.

London has problems in its outskirts.

a private hire drivers that becomes a taxi owned becomes lazy, and they get a job race it out and race back to rank it is unbelievable!

I made a pile by having all sorts of times behind my visor , where to be to pick up punters, within a month did the other guys copy it? no they just follow me like sheep, half the time I know the punters so I escort the ones I dont want to my followers cabs "now look after this lady for me"

you couldnt make it up!

then the good runs I take for myself,

think? that lot? all put together they couldnt pass the eleven plus!

Ha ha... well in fact Sussex, my association plate was pretty much on par with Brighton plates at the time. You may be surprised to learn that people opted to purchase one of our association plates instead of a Brighton plate, not because of any very small difference, but that it was much more financially viable on an earning basis.
Scanner

I passed the eleven plus. We don't have zones. But we position cabs out in the rural areas because we get business from them. Like we operate WAVs because we get business from it.

But then, we are delimited and no one tells us where to go.

Bighton's Streamline circuit puts cabs out in the suburbs too. Not necessarily because of intent, but simply because they travel outwards and become clear there. When you are a big circuit, it's a case of natural progression to serve the outer areas, as the chances of you having a cab clearing there are higher if you are doing 20,000 jobs than if you are a one-man-band. Again, if you examine the detail of the facts, the progrssion of our trade is towards bigger and bigger circuits and unlimited plates. It's the only effective way of getting proper coverage, as the timing of the various work flows is down to demand, and not to what a Council officer's predictions might be years in advance.

There is no doubt that de-zoning has historically just moved cabs into the centre.

Now couple dezoning with delimitation, single-tier licensing, and qualitative control, and the greed of the "inward movers" is just replaced with new cabs appearing in the outer areas to satiate the demand that still exists there.

And where do these new cabs come from? Usually PH operators who see a market developing out of town.

The usual proceedure is as follows:

The circiuit operator looks at his circuit fee income, and says to himself, how can I put extra cars on and earn extra rent? He then looks at a rural village say, and says "I can work a car there and develop a bit of trade" So he takes on another owner-driver who lives near the village, gives him a decent school contract to gaurantee him a decent base earning, then lets him soak up all the work from the village. In time, the vilage now having a reliable cab available, is getting more two way work from the town, neccesitating town cars moving too and from the village more frequently, which in turn improves the local peoples reliability/service levels. And the circuit operator says" Thank you very much" every time the O/Driver pays his rent each week.

The moral of the story, is that delimiting plates will and does, give this cascade affect.

The only area where I would disagree with Andy and Dusty and the others, is that I believe delimitation should be undertaken on a phased basis, as sudden radical moves just make us all suffer as the market floods with new entrants, until such time as market forces have again naturally found their own level.

I have no-doubt that there are a number of examples, but surely they're examples of stupidity.

I don't for a second believe that if you got a license to pick up though-out your council area, you would suddenly forget the custom that you have built up. So why do others?

I go back to my original point, if areas aren't being covered, then that's evidence of un-met demand, so the council should have no basis to restrict.

However as my mate Mr Maud from Castlepoint found out, this is all irrelevant, because zoning has been deemed to be un-lawful.

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IDFIMH

Surely your association has shares, the council have the plates.

There is a big difference.

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IDFIMH

I think that's where you differ from some, Andy7.

The firm you work with run a business, whereas in some restricted areas, they run corrupt, inefficient, lack laster cartels.

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IDFIMH

yes good thory,

now give me an example of where this has actualy happened?

because I have never seen it.

though I have seen the village plate say give us a couple of days in town on market days to get me going

and they have never gone back to the village and rhe council have been conned!

I think you have been listening too much to Nigel.

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IDFIMH

I am not sure Sussex and heres why

Castlepoinr was about creating zones, that is ilegle
however
those with ancient zones approved by dept of transport?

this is a question and not meant to be passed as fact.

Geoff

Correct, but I think when LORD JUSTICE KEENE said:

In my view a condition preventing a taxi from plying for hire from a particular taxi stand or stands, or in a particular street or streets, would fall outside the scope of the powers granted by Parliament.

There he was pointing out that council can licensed one set of taxis, not different sets.

In fact he sort of says that a bit earlier:

There is to my mind an even stronger point against Mr Wolfe's (Appellant's Barrister) contention. If he were right, it would enable an authority to create by its licensing system two classes of taxis: one unrestricted as to where a taxi could ply for hire and the other restricted. The latter would patently be a second class type of taxi which could not operate from all the stands or perhaps all the streets in the borough or district. That seems to me to be contrary to the whole legislative approach adopted more recently by Parliament in this area of activity, the approach being to allow, as far as possible, open competition in the trade.

As Lord Justice Woolf said in R v Great Yarmouth Borough Council ex p Sawyer [1989] RTR 297 at 298, the policy of the Transport Act 1985 is
" ..... to remove restraints and allow market forces to take their course in a way which did not exist before Section 16 of the Transport Act 1985 came into effect."

In the same case Lord Justice Bingham (at page 303) referred to the Act of 1985 substituting "a free market policy" so long as the authority was not satisfied that there was no unmet demand. To bring into being a two?tier structure of licensed taxis within a district would fly in the face of that legislative approach.

If anyone would like the full transcript, then if they e-mail me, I will whizz it over.

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IDFIMH