Taxi Driver Online

I'm not sure about the timing, but the Halcrow report and Peter Lang's findings might contradict each other if they failed to take into account the vehicles waiting to go on the road while up dating their SUD. Lang's findings would have to show that a demand still existed.

peter langs report only goes up to jan 2011 then he retired,the following data is in raw format and uninterpreted,from a traffic counting company.
when i applied there was clear demand as the amount of taxi's was below what halcrow recomended in 2009,it should have been a simple slam dunk.
what they have done is delibertly put off hearing my application until such time as that demand was covered by the courts granting the new licences.
in effect they have have done to me what the courts have just told them not to do.

you couldn't make this up

yer dead right about that btw

“Appendix 2 contains an assessment of demand for taxi services in the city which concludes that there is currently no significant unmet demand. “

Ali, when you applied the council have admitted that demand existed for one licence within their own cap of 1,296.

“The Council’s policy is to limit the number of taxi licences issued, with a limit of 1,296 taxis. At the date Mrs Turnbull’s and Mr Mackie’s applications were made there were 1295 taxi licences in effect. There was therefore one taxi licence available. “

If I understand this correctly, you applied for a licence within the existing number capped by the council and not as a consequence of a significant unmet demand being identified. The councils are therefore using the fact they lost the Donald case and were forced to issue licence, as the reason to deny your application.

In short, there is no significant demand because of a deemed grant of licence by a Sheriff.


Have I got this right?

thats pretty much it in a nutshell
and they delayed hearing my application in order to wait for the sherrif to grant

thing is that a deemed grant does not really on demand being there or not,its irrelevant.

in fact when i applied there was in my opinion no need for it to go to committee even.it was below there own demand it should simply have been granted period.

Have you got appendix 2 and a date for which their "assessment" was carried out?

The Mackie objection looks like a crude attempt attempt to spoil your wife's application, in order to further their own.
I doubt the committee will entertain it.

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I can't see how they can consider your application in accordance with section 10.3. As by their own admission, there was a licence available. The licenses granted by Sheriff Noble have to be irrelevant as far as demand is concerned. Am I correct in saying the council lost the case after your licence application was in, and before any survey was carried out?

Are the Council legally obliged to consider the application within a certain period of time ?
If they are not, then I’m guessing the application will be rejected on the S.U. D. rule. In short,
the Council would make their decision on what the circumstances were when the application was considered, and not what the circumstances were at the time the application was made.
( Maybe I’m reading it wrong )

When the licence application “falls to be considered” the council needs up-to-date demand information to make their decision. A demand existed for at least one licence. This would mean Noble's decision to grant being applied retrospectively to meet demand while an application was already going through the statutory process.

Up until the Noble decision, there was one taxi licence available and one applicant.

I would be very surprised if the council could use the grant of a licence by a Sheriff to effectively deny an existing applicant.

I think the council's problem is this:

“The Council’s policy is to limit the number of taxi licences issued, with a limit of 1,296 taxis. At the date Mrs Turnbull’s and Mr Mackie’s applications were made there were 1295 taxi licences in effect. There was therefore one taxi licence available. “

The question has to be, what happened to the "one taxi licence available"? Who was it issued to and why?

APPENDIX 2

ASSESSMENT OF CURRENT DEMAND FOR TAXI SERVICES IN EDINBURGH


1.BACKGROUND.

There was no limit on the number of taxi licences in Edinburgh until 1990, when it was decided to introduce a limit of 1,030. Matters were reviewed in 1993 and 1995 and the limit was raised by 181. In 2001, the limit was increased by a further 49, to 1260. Following a survey in 2005, the Council decided that there was no evidence of significant demand for taxis which was unmet and resolved not to issue any new licences at that time.

In February 2007, the Council considered an update on the 2005 Survey, involving stance surveys and questionnaires to stakeholders, and concluded that that there was no significant demand for taxi services which was unmet. On 25th October 2007, the Council reaffirmed its existing policy to restrict the number of taxi licences issued to 1260 and instructed the Director of Corporate Services to commission a comprehensive report on taxi demand approximately every three years.

In July 2008, Halcrow Group Limited, transportation consultants, was commissioned to carry out a survey as to the demand for taxi services in the city. Their final report was issued in July 2009 and was based on rank observations between August 2008 and May 2009 and interviews and surveys conducted between November 2008 and March 2009. Halcrow concluded that there was evidence that a significant demand for taxi services which is unmet and suggested that 30 new taxi licences be issued to meet this demand.

The conclusions of the Halcrow report were accepted by the Council’s Regulatory Committee on 28th August 2009.
.
Large scale surveys by consultants such as Halcrow are obtained every three years. An invitation for tenders for a new survey is about to be issued with the report expected in the summer of 2012. To provide demand information between large surveys, smaller rank observation surveys are carried out by Count on Us Ltd. These are supplemented by information on response times from taxi booking offices. These are collated onto reports by the Taxi Monitoring Officer including other information such as complaints from the public as to lack of taxis.

Since August 2009, the Regulatory Committee has noted reports from the Taxi Monitoring Officer at the following meetings –

13 August 2010 – For Period January to June 2010
3 December 2010 – For period July to October 2010



2.REPORT BY FORMER TAXI MONITORING OFFICER

A report was prepared by the Taxi Monitoring Officer for the period November 2010 to January 2011. A copy of the report is attached as Appendix 2A. This report was to have been presented to the Regulatory Committee on 22 May 2011, but, due to changes in approval of such reports by the then Acting Director of Corporate Services, could not be placed before the Regulatory Committee.


3.STANCE OBSERVATION SURVEYS.

Count on Us Limited provided the results of a stance surveys between February and June 2011. A selection of representative ranks was observed on different days and times. 1,492 journeys were recorded. A summary of the results are shown on Appendix 2B.

The passenger wait times are comparable to previous stance surveys –


Numbers Waiting /Hires
Max Wait



Apr-May 2010
136/726 (18%)
10:10
Oct 2010
36/222 (16%)
6:16
Nov 2010 – Jan 2011
459/1103 (41%)
21:37
Feb – Jun 2011
174/1566 (11%)
17:13

The Taxi Monitoring Officer’s report for November 2010 to January 2011 considered that the number of passengers observed waiting for taxis was higher in November/January due to the severe winter weather in December 2010.

4.INFORMATION FROM TAXI BOOKING OFFICES.

Response information to telephone bookings has been provided by Central Radio Taxis (Tollcross) Ltd and City Cabs (Edinburgh) Ltd for the period July to September 2011. These are in Appendix 2C.

These returns indicate the major taxi radio booking offices in Edinburgh have been able to supply around 98% of requests for taxis within 15 minutes of the call being received. Given the likely time required for the taxi to reach the passengers location, this would indicate a sufficient number of taxis are available to meet demand.

5.OTHER INFORMATION.

No complaints have been received by the Licensing Team this year from members of the public complaining as to a lack of taxis.

6.CONCLUSIONS.

Although there appear to remain to be peaks of demand at certain times and locations, it is considered that there is no evidence of significant unmet demand overall for taxi services.

The stance observations indicate that 89% of passengers at ranks were able to obtain a taxi immediately.

The average waiting times for main city centre ranks at daytime were either non existent or not excessive (Waverly Bridge - 2 minutes 20 seconds, 2 minutes 10 seconds and High Street - None and 2 minutes 44 seconds).

Wait times to obtain a taxi were slightly longer at evening/early mornings than day time. However, at the major city centre ranks, many passengers were still able to obtain a taxi immediately. Of those who had to wait, the wait time is not considered too excessive eg Waverly Bridge 21.00 to 23.00 on Sat 26 March – 1minute 28 seconds, High Street 2.00 to 4.00 on Saturday 4 June – 3 minutes 58 seconds, Lothian Road 2.00 to 4.00 on Saturday 4 June – 2minutes 24 seconds.

The waiting times for the Waverly Bridge stance between 3.00am to 5.00am are higher with an average wait time of 7minutes 59 seconds and a maximum wait time of 17 minutes 13 seconds. However, these results were based on only 23 passengers and, of these, 12 were able to obtain a taxi immediately. It is suggested that this result may not be significant given the low numbers of passengers involved.

No complaints have been received from the public as to a lack of taxis this year.

Taxi booking office response rates appear to remain very high.

A further 12 taxis have just become operational to meet demand.

Taking all of the above factors into account, it is concluded that no significant demand for taxi services which remains unmet at this time.



Donald Macleod
Principal Solicitor (Licensing)
12 December 2011



ReportNewTaxisJTurnbullRMackie141211Appendix2

funnily enough john thats exactly what they did with the boys who took them to court and have just won.
as i said ages ago they will do this because thats what they do.
skulls right they were caught with there pants down again and their punishment "appeall it"
its the usual pish.

Should be strait forward for any that do as the rest have set a presidents