Taxi Driver Online

One of the lads in Brighton has a 7 seat E7 PH, he is just about to be offered a WAV plate, however the LA have told him they will not licence the car as a 7 seater Hack only 6 as it has not got enough luggage space. Do any other LA's licence these E7's as 7 seaters hacks?

They are licensed for 7 down here but the driver can ask for only 6 if he doesn't wish to carry passengers in front.

Have you tried Cab Direct, cos they should know.

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IDFIMH

Thanks Sussex, I will call them tomorrow to see if they can help out.

He needs to think trailer

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

Depending on the individual spec of the vehicle - ie. front pax seat or luggage compartment - they are licenced for 6 or 7 seats here. Personally as a van derived vehicle that needs proper crash testing etc would like to see them banned but thats only a personal opinion (and about to get a load of grief for!!!)

Our lot caved in and licensed them for 7, if there are 7 people going to the airport they'll book a minibus due to the amount of luggage they have, the lads who have them in our town had their front seats put back in.

I think your mistaken about the E7.

What’s in a Name?

Type Approval schemes are designed to bring clarity and independence to checking the safety pedigree of any vehicle – including special purpose builds and adaptations used in taxi industry. However, as Ian Hopley reports, it pays to know exactly what you should be looking for.

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With a lifelong passion for motor vehicles and having worked STATUS for 8 years, Ian Hopley knows a good deal more than most when it comes to vehicle technology. Big ends, compression ratios and even electronic brake-force distribution are second nature to Ian, so when he volunteers that ‘Type Approval is a complex subject’, you know this has to be a serious business!

Ian is quick to add that - despite the complexities – Type Approval is here to stay. In fact, it’s set to get even more complex over the next few years, thanks to the harmonisation process by which the individual requirements of each Member State are gradually replaced by a common set of standards accepted right across the European Community. For mass-produced passenger cars, this process is complete and for mass-produced light goods vehicles, minibuses, buses and coaches, it’s likely to happen in the next year or two.

So what does it all mean?

‘Well, for passenger cars, there are currently more than 50 separate EC Directives that manufacturers need to satisfy in order to gain ‘EC Whole Vehicle Type Approval’, explains Ian.

‘When a given vehicle passes all these tests, the manufacturer can sell it in unlimited numbers in any EC Member State without any further testing. Typically, there are standards for crash tests (front and side impact), emissions, noise, braking, lights, seat belt anchorages, tyres, glass and so on.

‘To get the full set from scratch might cost anything from quarter of a million pounds upwards per ‘type’, so it is not a trivial undertaking even for a major manufacturer. Moreover, each of the individual directives is constantly being reviewed and amended as technology improves so the cost of maintaining full EC approval once you’ve attained the required standard is also considerable.’

At some point a number of EC Member States - notably Great Britain - started getting worried about the smaller, specialist manufacturer like TVR, Lotus or Morgan. These companies made such tiny numbers of vehicles each year that the chances of them recovering their investment in EC Whole Vehicle Type Approval would be minimal. Similarly, the UK has an unusually active vehicle conversion market – notably for taxis but also other specialist products such as wheelchair passenger vehicles.

‘As a result of these concerns, the EC agreed to allow each Member State to have a lower level of approval for vehicles produced in smaller numbers – hence this scheme is known as Low Volume Type Approval,’ says Ian.

‘No more than 500 vehicles of any particular ‘type’ can be produced annually under this scheme and other Member States are not obliged to accept vehicles approved under another Member State’s scheme for ‘Low Volume’ vehicles.’

Ian continues: ‘Back in 1998, Britain also introduced a third scheme, the Single Vehicle Approval (SVA) scheme, with even less stringent requirements than the Low Volume Type Approval scheme. This was conceived primarily for ‘one-off’ vehicles such as amateur-built kit cars where, clearly, any destructive approval tests would be impossible to carry out!’

Since its introduction, the SVA scheme has been widely used by independent importers of non-EC approved vehicles (typically high performance mass-produced vehicles from the Far East and the USA), as well as companies adapting mass produced vehicles for use by disabled people and as wheelchair accessible taxis.

In an effort to curb the number of ‘grey’ imports entering the country by this method, the UK government subsequently launched the ‘Enhanced SVA’ scheme, whereby vehicles using this scheme had to demonstrate compliance with EC directive requirements in ten key areas, such as emissions, brakes and selected crash tests but were assessed under the same SVA requirements as kit cars for all other areas.

Ian adds: ‘Clearly driver and passenger safety is vital for all vehicles – and even more so for licensed public transport, where the paying customer would rightly expect the licensing authority to have taken due account of their safety by seeking appropriate evidence of engineering safety from the manufacturer of any vehicle put forward for public hire and reward.

‘Of course, most mass produced private hire vehicles are ‘whole vehicle’ covered. It’s the same now with the main players in the full hackney business, such as LTI’s TXII and the jointly manufactured Peugeot-Cab Direct E7 and Mercedes-Cab Direct M8.

So what, exactly, should you look for when considering suitability of vehicles for the taxi trade?

‘In a nutshell, EC Whole Vehicle Type Approval is the premier guarantee of fitness for purpose’, says Ian. Licensing authorities are increasingly recognising the value of this standard as an international benchmark for vehicle safety standards and are therefore moving to incorporate this within their local Conditions of Fitness.’

So far, so good. Except – unfortunately – for a growing trend among various smaller converters towards inappropriate use of an array of terminology which may sound like some form of Type Approval, yet which is in fact either meaningless and / or downright misleading. The table below offers a short guide to relevant terminology, including a few live examples taken from current supplier brochures and advertising.




M1 Tested / Approved

Commonly used as a quality mark, when in fact this is simply the EC definition for a passenger vehicle with up to 8 seats, plus driver. If someone claims a vehicle is ‘M1 Tested’ or ‘Fully M1’, all it means is that it has no more than 8 passenger seats. The term does not, in itself, mean that the vehicle meets any of the standards appropriate to an ‘M1’ vehicle!

M1 Specification

As above, this simply means that the vehicle concerned is a passenger vehicle with up to 8 passenger seats. It does not guarantee compliance with any particular standard.

VCA

The Vehicle Certification Agency is the part of the Department for Transport responsible for issuing both UK Low Volume Type Approvals and EC Whole Vehicle Type Approvals issued in the UK.

VOSA

The Vehicle and Operator Services Agency is also an arm of the Department for Transport. It administers MOTs and the Single Vehicle Approval and Enhanced Single Vehicle Approval schemes.

M1 Tested Seating Throughout

Some converters use seats manufactured by a third party. Typically, these seats have seat belts (and therefore belt anchorages built into them. The seat manufacturer often makes a range of similar seats suitable for fitting into cars (M1 vehicles), minibuses (M2) or large buses (M3). The standards that the seat belt anchorages have to meet are different for each vehicle type – cars having the most demanding requirements. An ‘M1-tested seat’, therefore, is capable of meeting the seat belt anchorage requirements for a passenger car. Unfortunately (and unlike EC Whole Vehicle Type Approval or UK Low Volume Type Approval) this does not necessarily mean it has then been secured to the vehicle floor in such a way that it will stay put in the event of an accident!

UK Whole Vehicle Type Approval

There simply is no such scheme! Be very suspicious of anyone claiming spurious ‘sound-alike’ safety approvals like this.

M1 VCA Type Approval

This is an ambiguous claim as there is more than one sort of M1 VCA Type Approval. It could either mean UK Low Volume Type Approval or EC Whole Vehicle Type Approval – both apply to M1 category vehicles and both are administered by the VCA.

VCA Whole Vehicle Approved orVCA M1 Whole Vehicle Type Approval

Again, the ‘whole vehicle’ might well have been approved by the Vehicle Certification Agency but this statement gives no clue as to what standard it was approved to.

MIRA tested to M1 Specification

MIRA is a test house – the Motor Industry Research Association. It is a highly respected organisation and carries out many thousands of tests but this statement gives no clue as to which part(s) of the vehicle were tested, nor whether those parts passed the tests, or indeed, which of the various M1 category vehicle specifications it was tested against.


Quite a minefield, I’m sure you’ll agree! Hopley offers five key pieces of advice:

1.Make a point of knowing what each Vehicle Type approval really means

2.Look out for suppliers stating that a given vehicle has EC Whole Vehicle Type Approval, when in fact what they mean is that the original base vehicle met these standards, before they started cutting and amending the vehicle for its new purpose.

3.Look out for suppliers claiming bogus approvals made to sound like official certification (e.g. ‘UK Whole Vehicle Type Approval’ or ‘M1 Type Approval’)

4.Always ask the manufacturer concerned to supply certification from the relevant approval agency to back up their claims – and check the Type Approval number on the VIN plate which much be attached to every vehicle.

5.Don’t be afraid of asking ‘daft’ questions! This is a very complex and constantly changing subject so make sure you’re completely happy with the certification that has been produced. If in doubt, ask the VCA or VOSA (contact details on the websites).

“Sadly points one and two can be fairly common practice with some suppliers to the taxi industry,” says Ian. “It’s all too easy for someone to take an existing vehicle, change seating and add wheelchair access – affecting any number of Type Approval tests in the process – yet try to hoodwink the market by claiming ‘EC Whole Vehicle Type Approval’ for their conversion, based on the standards met by VW for the original, production model.”

Hopley concludes: “If in doubt, ask for confirmation before you buy of exactly what approval certification will be provided with your vehicle and don’t accept it unless the paperwork matches the promise.”

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Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.
George Carlin

I said I was going to get grief just be glad you can have an E7 as PH as here they are prohibited and allowed only as Hacks due to the built of the vehicle.

I stand corrected; or should that be kneel and beg? Just remember I still have the one and only M1 Skoda Octavia ever built .... or was that just a lil error in the Admin Dept somewhere????

I used to own a eurobus 8str, M1 spec on the logbook, 3 confrence type seats(rear facing) with w/c tracking. No complaints with the build quality(a fowlers conversion ), my problem with this type of purpose built taxi(or ph!) was one of a safety issue. Yes, the actual vechile was M1 spec and the base vechile, fiat scudo, was crash tested, but the amount of parents who insisted on getting in with buggies and leaving the child in the buggy while travelling. I wore a proper seatbelt, 9/10 passengers wore a proper seatbelt but say the worst happened and the vechile ended up on its roof??? What happens to the kid in the buggy? thrown about like a rag doll I used to have some unhappy mothers who on being told to fold the buggy say regulary "but i phoned your company because its easier to keep the buggy up" I suppose my reasoning could also apply to wheelchairs strapped into TX type taxis as well but at the end of the day whats safe and whats not?