Taxi Driver Online

Taxi drivers can work for more than one company in Swindon

https://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/new ... y-swindon/

Drivers of private hire taxis – the sort which must be booked in advance and not picked up at a rank or hailed on the street – will be able to work for more than one company after a change in policy by Swindon Borough Council.

Members of the authority’s licensing committee voted to approve the change will see drivers able to sign up with three operating companies at the same time.

Licensing manager Kathryn Ashton who put the proposal to the committee told the councillors the current arrangement prevented this: “When we issue a licence to a diver we give them a green form, which they hand to the operator they decide to work for. And that is then registered with us.

“It has been done like this for safety of passengers. We can control the hours and fares a driver takes. It means if something happens, and we have a complaint we can ring the operator immediately and stop the driver working while we look into it.”

But Ms Ashton told the committee Swindon was in “a minority” of councils who didn’t let drivers work for more than one company and didn’t want to stifle the ability to work for drivers.

Private hire car firms are against the change saying it could lead to passengers being “dropped” by a driver who has accepted a fare but then is offered a more lucrative journey by a different company, which could be potentially unsafe.

But Ms Ashton told the committee the licensing team would monitor that to make sure it didn’t happen, and it was confident it could keep track of drivers who signed up with more than one company.

She did say there were still issues that would take some getting used to: “We’d expect a driver to arrive at a pick-up with the livery for the form through which the booking was made on the car., so that will be more of a burden on the driver.”

She told the committee it was very easy for a driver to move operators: one just had to request the green form back and move to another company if it agreed to take you.

The committee voted to allow a driver to work for up to three companies if they choose and if the operator was willing.

The first green form would be issued with the driver’s private hire licence as now, a second one would cost £100 and a third £150.

A fourth form would be permitted specifically for airport work.

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IDFIMH

Why only three?

What difference does it make if it's three or a hundred and three?

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IDFIMH

Since when has a licensing authority been able to control a PH driver's hours and fares?

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IDFIMH

Wouldn't a fair and reasonable licensing authority do some investigations first before they suspend a driver?

FFS.

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IDFIMH

Fancy self-employed drivers actually acting as if they are self-employed.

If the operators are so concerned then offer those drivers full employment rights.

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IDFIMH

I suspect it's just a clunky way of saying that they can stop the driver working via the operator, particularly when read in the context of the paragraph as a whole (and by 'fares', I'd guess she means jobs, rather than, er, fares).


As regards your other point about the latter sentence, I'd guess it's a lot less casual than she makes it sound, and it's simply about being able to suspend drivers in serious cases that require immediate action, and the council can ensure via the operator that the driver doesn't work.

She's probably trying to express it all in terms that daftie councillors will understand, rather than what might be said during a formal legal process, say. But maybe she's trying a bit too hard

round here the words fare and job are interchangeable drivers usually talk about a fare to x y or z

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

'Fares' as meaning 'jobs', 'runs' or 'trips' is actually used quite often by mainstream journalists in some of the articles posted on here.

However, it's usually obvious from the context that it means a job rather than the tariff it's priced at.

But when a council licensing manager talks about 'control' of 'fares', you'd immediately think they're talking about regulated maximum tariffs. But I suspect she's actually meaning 'fares' as in 'jobs', as I think is demonstrated by the context of the whole paragraph.

Had a look at the agenda papers to see if they would shed any more light, but couldn't see anything.

But, on reflection, I suspect the licensing manager's talk of controlling 'fares' is certainly meant in the context of 'jobs', but maybe more in the context of the stuff about drivers cancelling accepted 'fares' in favour of a more lucrative run.


But the article above seems to think that can be controlled, and it's also thought that to a degree the trade can self-regulate in that regard.

But interesting that there's no mention of the safety angle in the agenda papers, which of course was the main sticking point in the past. The safety angle seems to have featured mainly in the committee discussion, as reported in the article above.

And maybe they think the livery requirement will also put a stop to that kind of thing:


Change the livery inside and outside every time they get a job from a different operator?

Driver accepts a run, changes his livery inside and out. Oh wait, here's a better run, I'll cancel the first run and accept that one. Just pop round the car and change that livery yet again

Oh, my aching sides

Quite a few other interesting potential discussion points in the official papers if anyone's interested. It's reasonably brief, and starts on page 15:

http://ww5.swindon.gov.uk/moderngov/doc ... e.pdf?T=10

3 sets of doormags would that take much time to swap them ?

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

Depends Edders, of course, on what the council have specified and/or what they allow in terms of livery and signage etc.

I mean, haven't one or two councils said drivers can work for as many operators as they like, but they must have stick-on labels with the operators' names and plate number etc

In which case they're just allowing multi-op working in theory, because in practice it's not really feasible.

Can't see any mention of the issue in the council's agenda, other than that the livery must be changed if working for another operator

Maybe.

However, perhaps the licensing officer should have told the committee that they have no powers to limit where licensed drivers work, whom they work with, and how many operators drivers choose to work with.

What she should also have done is to tell those councillors that the current policy was set in place by a bunch of clueless cretins who, I'm guessing, were advised by an equally clueless lot of officials.

It simply beggars belief that in the year 2022 this issue ever arises.

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IDFIMH

Sussex, don't know if you read the agenda papers, but essentially they now seem to be saying that the current system is not in accordance with the law (although there's no detail), but of course the agenda papers seem to have taken a distinctly 'revisionist' approach to the council's history on the issue. In other words, 'selective memory syndrome', or whatever


However, a few paragraphs later there seems to be slight change in tone in response to the concerns raised by Veezu and another operator. In particular, the word 'risk' seems to be sympathetic to their concerns, whereas they should have perhaps reiterated that while they may consider it undesirable, the increased 'risk' of cross-border operating isn't a legitimate concern in law.