Taxi Driver Online

Dundee taxi users facing steep hike in fares

Taxi fares in Dundee are set to increase by more than 6% in July under a restructuring move agreed between the taxi trade and the city council.

The proposed increase, which is sure to provoke opposition among taxi users, comes as part of joint attempts to simplify the structure of taxi fares across the city.

Notice of the increase came in a report by the director of city development, Mike Galloway, entitled Proposed Simplification of Taxi Fares Structure and Annual Fare Increase Methodology.

The proposal comes at a time when Dundee taxi fares are already the highest in Scotland for short journeys.

At present, it costs £3.70 to travel one mile in Dundee during the day, £3.20 in Glasgow, £3.40 in Aberdeen and £3.50 in Edinburgh.

The average fare among Scotlands' top four cities is £3.45 for a one-mile journey.

However, the longer the journey the cheaper it gets in Dundee, with taxi drivers in all three bigger cities charging considerably more for journeys between five and 10 miles.

Councillors at the licensing committee were asked to approve the beginning of statutory consultation into the issue.

Both the city council and the taxi trade are in favour of the move which, they say, will remove the potential for disputes between them over future fare increases.

Twice in the past six years the city's taxi trade has appealed to the Scottish traffic commissioner after failing to agree increases with the city council.

Last year the commissioner awarded the trade a 20p flat rate increase, twice what the council was offering.

The proposed new structure will see fares rising by percentages over set distances instead of a flat increase.

At present, the flat fare is set at £2.70 and increases by 20p every 250 yards.

Under the new proposals, it will increase by 14.1p per 1/10th of a mile, resulting in a three-mile fare of £6.36.

Changes to the unsocial hours tariffs mean instead of the fares increasing by a flat rate of 60p Mondays to Thursdays and by £1 on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, the increases would be 10% and 20% (15.5p and 16.9p per 1/10th mile) respectively.

The festive tariff is the flat rate plus 40%, or 19.7p per 1.10th mile, which works out at £8.90 for a three-mile journey.

The taxi trade point out that means a decrease in the unsocial hours fare for short journeys.

The proposed increase has been set in comparison to last July's rise in the council's bus and taxi contracts, including school runs.

Graeme Stephen, chairman of the Dundee Taxi Association, welcomed the move which, he said, will mean ''no more loggerheads'' between the trade and the council.

''The nightshift will actually start off cheaper for customers,'' he said. ''We've been trying to get a system like this for a number of years. It's similar to Glasgow's and it will avoid us involving the traffic commissioner and arguing with the city council.''


http://www.thecourier.co.uk/News/Dundee ... fares.html

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

FFS you would need the brain of Einstein to work out those new fares
Keep them simple have a starting rate, then 10P clicks,
Then every year all you do is increase the starting rate

You obviously didn't notice the title of the report Skippy:

Proposed Simplification of Taxi Fares Structure and Annual Fare Increase Methodology

Mind you, even the title seems complicated