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Drop in passenger numbers hits Scottish taxi drivers
SCOTTISH TAXI drivers are facing the prospect of a bleak mid-winter as the recession cuts into customer numbers. The ongoing downturn - coupled with the threat of worse to come - has led to a fall in the number of people going out in the evenings. Drivers say those that are going out are also more likely to use cheaper means of public transport such as the bus.
Edinburgh firm Central Taxis reported a 5% drop in account work as businesses rein in on staff travel. Some drivers are finding conditions so difficult they are abandoning the trade and trying to find alternative work driving buses or other vehicles.
Although most of the drivers spoken to by the Sunday Herald suggested the festive period would provide some respite to their woes, most looked forward with uncertainty to the period stretching from the middle of January to the end of March - a period in which even in a good year trade traditionally falls away.
Murray Fleming, company secretary for Central Taxis, said the accounts side of the business has fallen away. He said Edinburgh taxi drivers were asking the council to permanently raise taxi fares to help deal with the situation.
He said: "Most businesses are saying to us that they are trimming back. The irony for us is that the other number of hires is up but they are most usually lower fares. With an account hire the driver knows it will probably be in excess of £10. People have less disposable income and there are less people taking weekend breaks in the city which has led to a drop in business from hotels and from the airport."
Fleming said that for the past few months he had been helping staff prepare CVs so they could move into other lines of work: "Recently we have been finding that we can't find drivers for certain shifts and that is the first time we have ever noticed that effect."
An Edinburgh City Council spokeswoman said it had already raised fares on a temporary basis by 20p to help deal with high fuel prices and was still debating whether to do so on a permanent basis.
Eric Gray, a 59-year-old taxi driver from Forfar, near Dundee, said: "It's bad - perhaps the worst I've ever seen it. I'm not ready to give it up. Trade should pick up over Christmas and new year but even that has a nasty habit of falling away."
According to Bill McIntosh, general secretary of the Scottish Taxi Federation, there are about 10,000 taxi licences in the country, which roughly equates to about 20,000 drivers. Most drivers are self-employed with some working in large co-operatives that deal with bookings. The largest such co-op is Glasgow Taxis Ltd, which has about 1000 cars; Central and City Cabs in Edinburgh with about 400 cars; Tele Taxis in Dundee; and Rainbow Taxis in Aberdeen.
In addition to licenced taxis, McIntosh estimated that there were roughly 20,000 private hire drivers operating in Scotland, and predicted that perennial tension between the two categories was likely to increase as the number of fares decreased. Taxi drivers accuse private-hire drivers of illegally picking up fares in the street, and object to a perceived lack of enforcement of laws against this by city authorities.
Taxis drivers who work for co-ops must pay the organisations a weekly fee, thought to be between £70 and £100. Drivers must also pay local authorities for driver and car licences, and pay for upkeep of the car and other running costs. For some operators profits are not high. One rural driver said they only earned £12,000 on a turnover of about £50,000.
John Smith, a 65-year-old Glasgow driver with 28 years in the trade, said he had no plans to retire. He said drivers regularly left the business for personal reasons: "It's been a bit quiet but Christmas is coming, although it goes very quiet in January. I've been sitting here for 38 minutes without a hire but I don't think people should panic. People will always want to use taxis and the trade will come back.
Dougie Ingles, head of Dundee's Tele Taxis, said trade was "still going OK". He added: "It's probably just about the same as it was this time last year." Colin Borland, Federation of Small Businesses spokesman, said: "For obvious reasons, taxi drivers are usually a good barometer of our vital service sector. If the taxi drivers are busy, then so are the restaurants, cafes, pubs and clubs.
"Over the last six months, taxi drivers, like a lot of self-employed people, have had to put up with volatile fuel prices in conjunction with an unstable economy and sliding consumer confidence. But Christmas is on the way and that's a time when many people like to get out, hit the town, see friends and enjoy themselves."
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