Taxi Driver Online

The point I was trying to make is whether or not a booking agent is an operator for the purpose of the 1976 act and even the 1998 London act? The same as in holiday transfers and taxi included rail to home single ticket transfers along with all the other third party booking services that include taxi travel as part of the service?

If we examine the 1976 legislation and take the literal meaning of section 56 of the act it would suggest that anyone who takes a booking for provision of a private hire vehicle is breaking the law if they don't have an operators license and in turn don't use vehicles from the area in which that license is in force.

The act states

"operate" means in the course of business to make provision for the invitation or acceptance of bookings for a private hire vehicle;

"operator's licence" means a licence under section 55 of this Act;

Section 56 states.

56 Operators of private hire vehicles (1) For the purposes of this Part of this Act every contract for the hire of a private hire vehicle licensed under this Part of this Act shall be deemed to be made with the operator who accepted the booking for that vehicle whether or not he himself provided the vehicle

Section 46 states

46 operators' licences (1) Except as authorised by this Part of this Act—

(d) no person shall in a controlled district operate any vehicle as a private
hire vehicle without having a current licence under section 55 of this
Act;

(e) no person licensed under the said section 55 shall in a controlled
district operate any vehicle as a private hire vehicle—

(i) if for the vehicle a current licence under die said section 48 is not in
force; or (ii) if the driver does not have a current licence under the said
section 51.

The advantage that section 5 of the London act has over the 1976 act is that it specifically allows sub contracting which no doubt was seen as a failing in the 1976 act, however as far as booking agents are concerned in London they need an operators license regardless. Even then the sticking point comes down to when is a booking agent a private hire operator and when is the booking agent just a conduit between the prospective passenger and the private hire operator. If the strict letter of the law is applied then everyone who undertakes a booking as part of a travel package or service would need to have a London private hire operators license. So we have to ask ourselves in the case of London when does the booking acceptance begin and end? The same applies in England and Wales where does the booking agent stop being a booking agent and become a private hire operator?

Regards

JD

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Copyright notice © The contents of this post are copyright of JD and are not to be reproduced outside of TDO without written permission.

On a personal note I think contracting and subcontracting of private hire vehicles needs a complete overhaul and rethink and brought into the 21st century. This inclusion of section 5 of the 1998 London private hire act into the 1976 act, just doesn't cut it. On the contrary it falls far short of what is needed for modern day business flexibility.

I would like to read what some of you private hire operators have to say on the subject of what is required in 2008 in order to make subcontracting more amenable to both the public and the taxi trade.

Regards

JD

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Copyright notice © The contents of this post are copyright of JD and are not to be reproduced outside of TDO without written permission.

if a coach company requires me as a "feeder" for 7 passengers, they will have an O licence, but it wont be tied to any LA, but to a regional licensing VOSA area, and nothing to do with the taxi/PH trade, and the coach company would be paying me, with passengers quite probably not in my LA area, even more complicated?....

I think it would be good if an operator from A could pass work they can't do to an operator in area B i.e. a regular customer needing a car to do a local job miles away from your base, but I can't see how that can be done and not let the multi-nationals take over the PH trade.

Great for the ops selling for millions, not great for the drivers who will be squeezed to pay for it, and not great for those of us that support higher standards who will have to compete with cars and drivers where sh** sheds are the preferred option.

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IDFIMH

the first moved would be to add a "available jobs" section on a forum or webpage, the 2nd move is to have posted jobs sent to members by email (free) or by sms alerts (costs), or by push email via gprs to mobile devices such as a PDA (free)

its quite common in the courier/haulage section

http://www.freightalerts.co.uk/

probably illegal to accept a job off another company though......

So if a person makes a booking from his or her mobile, or someone else's.
Can that licence operator pass that booking onto another out of their licence district?

Remember the person or company can use a mobile anywhere in the country, the same goes for email and voice over Internet protocol ( VoIP ) a third party on their behalf.


I thought the law applied to STD codes / telephone exchange in that district.

This why the law needs to be updated to the new technology.

No good saying a person or company that uses the above makes a booking with an airport transfer / chauffeur / executive company or whatever, as some of those types of vechicle are not mark up with livery plastered over their vehicles, they have only a plate on the back of them. The customers still thinks it's a vechicle from that company he or she had booked

Which makes me think about two big firms join up together and keeping their telephone numbers, I.e. Two or three numbers, but only one is allow on the vechicles. The drivers probly get from their customers, I didn't phone them up.

What a big mess.

This was posted from my phone.

No.

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IDFIMH

ah so law applies to the operator and not to the area or means where it came from the booking. Ta

Yes, a licensed op can only give work to a vehicle and driver licensed by the same council.

But, and this is confusing, as of now, a licensed op could give work to a licensed taxi who could pass that work on to a licensed operator from elsewhere. Who could in turn pass that work onto a driver and vehicle not licensed in the same area as the very first op.

Welcome to the 1976 act.

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IDFIMH

lol you got to be joking. The taxi as a middle man lol

A company based in one part of the country taking on work all over the UK then passing it out to operators.... all over the UK, Oooh i dunno lets say to Limo ops, are they breaking the law? are the operators breaking the law? especially when knowingly using ILLEGAL vehicles?

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Oi ! get back to work

Another bit of licensing law many in the Limo trade care to ignore.

In the PH world an operator from one area cannot pass work to another operator in another licensing area.

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IDFIMH

If one of my regular customers phones me from miles away and asks me to get a HC/PH for a local (to where he is) journey. I would ring for a quote, call my customer back with the info and then if he wants me to, I book it for him, I cannot see how this can be illegal if I have not advertised for or in any other way touted for any member of the public to ring me first. I can see that it may be illegal if I did seek that sort of work but if a "regular" existing customer requested my help I can offer that help and make a small charge (commission) for that service.
This does happen very often with business clients.

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you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

I suppose a difference could be suggested that you was acting as his secretary, not his normal taxi/PH booking office.

By that I mean he didn't book the job with you, just asked you to book it elsewhere.

Quite why he isn't able to ring the firm direct is another matter. But if he did book it with you, and you passed it on to an op in another licensing area, then that is 100% illegal.

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IDFIMH