Taxi Driver Online

I think it is the other way around. I can see nothing in either act that states that you can't.

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Grandad,

Not sure if you're agreeing with me, disagreeing with me, or if we're at cross purposes.

But you agree that prior to 2015 a PH driver could work wholly in another area provided he was licensed in the same area as the operator taking the call?

Thus the statement by the councillor is incorrect - PH could *always* work in another area, provided the 'triple-lock' licensing was in place.

Correct.

The only difference the Dereg Act made, in respect of PH bookings, was it permitted one operator from area A to pass on bookings to an operator in area B.

It has always been permitted that PH drivers and vehicles from area A can sit and take work in area B.

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IDFIMH

Prior to 2015 a ph driver could only accept work that was taken by an operator who was licensed in the same area that he was badged. For inatance a driver who was licensed by wolverhampton council could only do work from a wolverhampton operator. A wolverhampton operator could not accept work from a birmingham operator and neither could the wolverhampton driver. Now the wolverhampton driver can still only get his work from a wolverhampton operator but the Wolverhampton operator can now accept work sub-contracted from a Birmingham operator and give it to the Wolverhampton driver. A private hire driver has never been able, and is still not able, to accept work from an operator from an area that he is not licensed.

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Grandad,

But that work has to come from an operator in area A.

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Grandad,

Indeed, but that bit hasn't changed.

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IDFIMH

Say Uber had arrived in 2000 and got 20,000 drivers badged and plated in Wolverhampton, and set up as an op there with a national call centre and freephone telephone number.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there would have been nothing to stop them doing that, then sending the drivers to work permanently in places like Newcastle, Manchester and Brighton etc, with all calls to the call centre in Wolverhampton, and all drivers/cars directed from there.

Correct.

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IDFIMH

Correct. This is where a lot of confusion arrises. This practice was legal before the deregulation act but since the deregulation act came in it has neant that a company that has an operators license in one area can now sub-contract to another operator in another area.
As an example, until recently there was a company that was based in Manchester who covered mainly airports with an all Mercedes fleet. Now until the deregulation act all the cars they used were supposed to be licensed by the same Council as the operators license, namely Manchester. This meant that they could only sub-contract to Manchester based companies. But since the deregulation act came into force they could expand their operation by sub-contracting to other operators licensed in other areas who would have found it difficult to license in Manchester.

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Grandad,