Taxi Driver Online

Taxi office set to close after apps kill walk-in trade

A taxi office near Brighton Station is set to close after more than 60 years after customers started using their smartphones to book cabs instead.

Southern Taxis has had the office in Queens Road since 1963 but will be closing its doors for the last time next month.

Owner Andrew Cheesman said it was looking to relocate to a smaller office as 90% of its staff now work from home.

He said the office rarely got walk-ins anymore – and problems parking in Queens Road was the “final nail in the coffin”.

Mr Cheesman said: “It’s be a taxi office since the early 1960s. We have been here 25 years but with changes in the systems that we all use now, and covid really pushing work from home, the time has come to close.

“Most of our operators work from home. People don’t work in offices any more.

“We’ve all got apps and Uber’s made a big difference to the taxi industry – it showed that people wanted an app in their phone. We have got an app which works in a very similar way now.

“It’s a four-storey office. We used to have ten people but not we only have three to five. We really don’t need the space.

“Parking around the station has got so bad that we can’t get to our own office to pick up our customers any more. It’s got very difficult.

“The final nail in the coffin was the parking. We are going to use smaller offices out of town.

“Twenty-five years ago, we would have 100 people walking in the office a day – they would walk down from the railway station. Now we get about five.

“People will phone you on demand or app you. The thought of having to walk into an office nowadays.

“Uber is still growing and bringing in cars from out of area. But we are not going anywhere. We are increasing in terms of size.

“A lot of people use our app now to get from A to B. And a lot of people still like a traditional phonecall.”

Southern still has offices at Brighton Marina, in Longridge Avenue in Saltdean and is about to open a new office in Warren Road, Woodingdean. It’s also looking for an office in Hove.

The owner of the Queens Road freehold, DSC Properties, has applied to turn the first and second floors of the building into a maisonette, and the basement and ground floor into commercial space.

source: https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2024/08/20/taxi-office-set-to-close-after-apps-kill-walk-in-trade/#google_vignette

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

sensible business descision to save some money offices are an expensive liability because walk in trade tends to be very limited these days everywhere.

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

Absolutely correct. The company will be saving a bucket load of money but want to dress it up as a bad thing.

Seems a little contradictory to me, unless the guy was misquoted.



I think its more likely that the person who owns the property wants to sell?



Nice free advert dressed as news though

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

They have other offices, but the one closing was their main base.

When I started walk-ins on a Friday/Saturday night was in the 100s each night, and many of those jobs going out of town.

The rent and rates at that property must be massive so it makes sense to move.

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IDFIMH

Makes sense if walk ins were the reason for the office, and with staff working from home its understandable

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

In many ways walk-in offices can be viewed as private ranks, so just more evidence of the shift from street bookings to mobile phones and apps.

And, of course, years before apps, mobile phones detracted from the public hire market because people out and about didn't have to find a payphone

And that article on TaxiPoint the other day about replacing congested ranks with an app system will probably one day represent a further nail in the coffin of 'classical' rank and hail markets

...although I suspect I'll either be retired or dead before it makes much difference up here