Taxi Driver Online

Well this maybe slightly better reflects what's happening in my gaff rather than the articles from Blackpool and Belfast etc.

So this seems a bit different, but just when you think he's NOT going to moan about a shortage of drivers and how difficult it is to get a badge, he starts moaning about a shortage of drivers and how difficult it is to get a badge

So when people can't get a cab they're moaning that it's too difficult to get a badge, but when the ranks are full of vacant cars they're moaning that it's too difficult to get a badge


Taxi drivers leave due to lack of custom

https://www.timeslocalnews.co.uk/tunbri ... -of-custom


Image: Times of Tunbridge Wells

Drivers of taxis in Tunbridge Wells are leaving the job because of plummeting trade caused by the pandemic.

Despite the lifting of all restrictions, passenger numbers are below 50 per cent of the pre-Covid levels and cabbies face a double whammy of increasing regulation making it harder to obtain licences.

“The rank outside the station does not move any more,” said Baraki Shujaullau, Chairman of the Hackney Carriage Association in the town.

“When a train used to pull into the station in the afternoon, around 20 to 30 cars would go from the rank. These days, we are lucky if five or six taxis get taken.”

He says falling commuter numbers as people work from home has caused the day trade to plummet, while drivers in the night economy are not faring much better.

“People are going out to pubs, restaurants and clubs and then getting a lift home. They don’t think taxis are [Covid] safe,” said Mr Baraki. “But all our drivers wear masks, we have hand sanitation, ventilation. Taxis are very Covid safe and secure.”

Taxi drivers earn £4.00 for the first mile and around £2.50 for each subsequent mile, but they also have to pay out around £360 a year for a taxi licence and £370 for a badge, along with other required payments such as DVLA and criminal record checks, an MOT every six months, and medical examinations.

Mr Baraki said the effect the fall in trade has had on drivers means that many are quitting because there is not enough work to go around.

“Before lockdown I would get around 12 jobs in an afternoon shift. During lockdown this fell to around two,” he explained.

“We are happy the rank is now at least moving, but we are now at around 50 per cent of the passenger numbers that we had before.

“So many drivers are leaving and going off to do something else because they are just not making any money.”

He warned that unless people began using taxis again, this exodus of drivers will mean getting a cab in the town would become increasingly difficult.

“We can’t get new drivers. They have to wait months for a licence and there has been a large increase in regulations.

“Around 20 years ago, when I got my licence it took about two months. We now have drivers waiting five, six months – even longer, and in that time drivers can’t earn money, so they go and do something else.

“We even have to get a certificate now to show we know how to put a seatbelt on – all drivers know how to fix a seatbelt – yet we have to book a test with a company to get this certificate, and these firms have a three-month waiting list.”

New drivers are also obliged to take a ‘knowledge test’ by Tunbridge Wells Borough Council [TWBC] before they can be granted a licence.

TWBC said there are currently 107 hackney carriage licenses in the borough, but the authority has no record of how many licence holders are currently operating.

A spokesperson did add that in normal times the council receives around ten applications from new drivers each year, but so far in 2021 they have received just two.

Anyway, that's the students back here, and freshers' week is more or less over. So last Saturday should have been the busiest dayshift of the year. Well I'm not complaining about my take, but just didn't seem quite the same as in previous years.

And apart from when the three daily London trains discorged hundreds of returning students out at the station last Saturday, don't think I've seen punters queueing at a rank all week. About the best I've seen in that regard is driving on to a rank empty of cars

To be fair, though, I've been home before the bitter end at 2/3am, which is probably when there's most likely to be queues of people waiting, for a short time at least. But although there's shedloads of students on the streets, they're not so inclined to take taxis in freshers' week I always think, so maybe there haven't even been queues at the death.

Looks like the Tunbridge taxi trade has been used to full trains coming and going.

That won't be back for many years.

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IDFIMH

If at all

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lack of modern legislation is the iceberg sinking the titanic of the transport sector