Taxi Driver Online

Where to start with this?

For a start, this email arrived just a couple of hours before the tournament finished, and was posted on the council's licensing page on Facebook at about the same time:


The Open Golf Championship, St Andrews - request for assistance from the taxi trade in Fife

For the attention of all taxi (yellow-plate) operators in Fife.

Due to the popularity of the 150th Open Golf Championship this year, combined with disruption to the public transport system, we have seen unprecedented demand for taxi and private hire services in St Andrews. There have been reports of patrons experiencing considerable delays in securing taxis at some of the ranks. It does appear that the demand is outstripping the supply at the peak times. The Royal & Ancient, as event organisers, have made a specific request for taxis from other areas in Fife to come to St Andrews to help with the demand and as a result all yellow-plate Fife taxis will be permitted access to the ranks in the Petheram Bridge (Yellow J) car park and The Scores. The taxi rank for hospitality guests in Yellow B will still be restricted access to those authorised taxis with a Yellow B sticker only (East plated taxis only).

After obvious issues with access to the Petheram Bridge taxi rank, the R&A have decided to move the private hire pick-up/drop-off area to the south car park at Petheram Bridge so as to avoid confusion in the north car park where the taxi rank is situated. CSP staff at the entrance to the car park will direct yellow plate Fife taxis left to the rank and direct any pre-booked hires to the right to the new private hire area.

As the overflow rank on the Petheram Bridge Access Road has not been required, the R&A have decided to suspend the requirement for all taxis to enter from the bus station end of the car park and instead allow all taxis and private hire vehicles to enter the car park from the A91 route. Signage is present at both ranks with CSP staff available to assist in directing you to the correct area.

If you have any questions regarding this change, please contact 07749712161.

About 35 comments on the council's Facebook page, mostly from drivers from other zones, asking, for example, why this 'request' only went out a couple of hours before the tournament finished. I posted the following - this is the short version, and the diplomatic one


This is my fifth Open as an independent hackney driver, so feel qualified to comment.

First, not really sure if it's any busier than previous Opens, so not sure why this is happening. Maybe it is a bit busier, because there's fewer cars working the area than pre-lockdown, but certainly nothing new for people to be waiting for taxis during the Open, particularly on the Saturday night.

Second, and leading on from the first point, why wait until late Sunday afternoon? The Sunday isn't maybe as busy as people think, because the fans tend to wait until the close of play, then there's a big rush, but by the later evening there's not as many pubgoers as on the other nights, and it all maybe fizzles out a bit earlier, at least as far as public hire work is concerned.

Third, and relating to the second point, at around 6pm cars couldn't even get on the Scores rank because of the numbers waiting, and after the rush and an hour or so later I'd guess that particular rank and the other rank mentioned would be dead by mid-evening.

So then it's mainly down to the town's standard night ranks if any drivers have come up to St Andrews. But the town's main rank has been full of parked cars all week, and no one in authority has lifted a finger to do anything about it. So no change there then, either as regards any night of the week at normal times, not to mention what's happened during previous Opens.

Which is one reason I actually went home earlyish, or at least before the worst of them came out of the pubs. And that's another reason I went home early - do the pubs really need an extra hour of drinking time during Open week, when many of them will have been drinking on the course for hours before even hitting the pubs?

Anyway, I hope any drivers who drove through to St Andrews did OK picking up the punters I went home to avoid. And let's hope the council followed the correct legal procedures for suspending the zone system, and that any taxis from the other zones plying for hire in St Andrews are properly insured.

Who would have thought?

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IDFIMH