Taxi Driver Online

Maybe this is due to Uber taking night work, or a lack of drivers, decreased demand at night, or whatever. But in reality it's maybe not as dramatic as it may sound at first...


United Taxis in Darlington scraps night time services

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/ ... -services/

A Darlington family-run taxi firm has scrapped its nighttime service with immediate effect.

United Taxis, which has been established in the town for more than 35 years, has announced it will no longer be operating on an evening following "much deliberation".

Bosses say the decision was made due to a variety of factors, including rising costs, and others that they say is "out of their hands".

United Taxis thanked customers who had used the service over the years, including office staff, drivers, and other colleagues.

The firm will now continue to operate from newly revised hours, from 6am until 6pm daily.

The decision comes just months after Darlington taxi drivers raised concerns over the rise of Uber drivers in Darlington after the firm was granted a license to operate in Darlington.

At the time, one local driver said many local cabbies have been forced to travel to Durham, Stockton, Middlesbrough, and elsewhere in the North East to pick up work.

It is not known whether the growth of Uber is among the factors behind the decision from United Taxis.

A full statement said: "After much deliberation and with regret, we will be shutting down our night time taxi service with immediate effect.

"The decision has not come lightly, but we have been left with no other option due to rising costs and certain factors that are out of our hands.

"We would like to take this opportunity to thank the thousands of customers that have used our service over the 35 years it has been running, and also to the office staff, drivers and colleagues we have worked alongside."

"United Taxis remains committed to serving you during our revised operating hours, and will continue to offer reliable transportation options throughout the day."

...because according to its website (which is presumably now out of date), it's been opening those hours (6am to 6pm) already on Monday to Wednesday

And on Thursdays and Sundays it's been closing at midnight...but has been opening through till 4am on Friday and Saturday nights.

So it's not exactly a 24/7 office moving to 6am to 6pm every day.

Still a big change, though

I wonder if they are a firm that has school work and not much else.

Staffing an office 24/7 has significant costs, and I'm not surprised they can't justify working 24/7. I also suspect they haven't got the cars to cover those hours.

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IDFIMH

Our local Hackney circuit office closes 7pm-7am. When closed the phone is put on divert to one of the drivers who then ‘screens’ the calls (they have to supply a 24hr service to the hospital and urgent care transport for the ambulance service)

Obviously 24/7 offices are more a big town/city thing, and with a population of something like 110,000, you'd have thought Darlington would be big enough to support 24/7 operations.

However, there's not much comes up with the usual Google search, and just a few what look like small scale operations/one-man bands with mobile phone numbers. Didn't spend long looking, but could only find one that specifically said it was 24/7 - Darlington Station Taxis.

However, for a town of that size its trade is very heavily biased towards HCs - almost 140, as opposed to around 120 PHVs. Thus very probably mixed circuits, in the main.

And the combined fleet of 260 looks small for the population, and only 350 total badges

And only six PHV operator licences, according to the DfT stats. Which will presumably include one or two small scale operations and/or one-man bands. (Blackpool, which is a bit bigger, has 22 PH operator's licenses, for example - Brighton & Hove is more than twice the size of Darlington, and has 54 PH operator's licences.)

Of course, none of that is directly related to an apparent dearth of 24 hour offices, but for a biggish-town/urban area, the Darlington trade doesn't seem entirely typical

the pub trade has been in sharp decline for years and nightclubs are few and far between. the days when there was good trade out there at night have long gone

who on here that's been in the trade 2 decades or more can say that they haven't lost more than half the pubs and nightclubs in their area ?

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

We knocked evening work on the head about 2 years ago.

The pub trade has gone, and TBH I won't shed any tears for that.

Generally, the nighttime trade is nowhere near what it once was.

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IDFIMH

And as if by magic TaxiPoint website has an article on the subject of the nighttime economy.

https://www.taxi-point.co.uk/post/night ... i-industry

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IDFIMH

Yes, some interesting insights in the TaxiPoint piece.

However - and this is one reason I'm not a huge fan - is that if the move from nightclubs to suburban house parties etc has heralded a shift from rank hires to app-bookings, then presumably there's an accompanying shift from HC work to PH?

And, of course, if that's the case then presumably there's also been a shift from rank work to good old phone bookings (which would probably benefit PH in the capital more than HCs, although in the sticks the distribution of more phone bookings between HCs and PHVs would be more mixed, I'd guess?)

(And, since TaxiPoint supposedly specialises in Glasgow , maybe the huge long-term drop in HC drivers there [as opposed to HC vehicles, the numbers of which are of course distorted because of the long-term cap], illustrates this trend on a longer-term basis, as street work has shifted towards pre-booking, and the trend towards pre-booking has also been accelerated by apps, and the Uber app in particular.

So it's maybe a longer-term trend towards pre-booking rather than rank and hail work, accelerated by automated pre-booking as opposed to phone booking. And, of course, going back longer still, no doubt the whole mobile phone thing encouraged pre-booking - what did we do before mobile phones? Not quite so easy to book a car via a phone in a pub or finding a working telephone box...

Which in turn points to another big TaxiPoint shortcoming - it's either HCs or app-only providers (Uber in particular, obviously, but also the HC apps), and it's as if the legacy London PH sector (aka minicabs) didn't exist.

Only in St Andrews (I do exaggerate) could you have a serious discussion about the whole sector without mentioning PHVs

(Strictly speaking, we have mixed fleets, and there's a smattering of PHVs, but they're just tacked on to the HC dispatch offices, basically. Of course, there's a bigger PH sector doing golf and airport works etc, but that's more of a specialist industry rather than the day-to-day 'taxi' work.)

...and this is another typically insightful piece from TaxiPoint except that it fails to mention one huge factor in the likes of the cross-border/Wolves-type of discussion.

Here's a clue - the first three letters of the word rearranged are 'm', 'm', and 'i'

Of course, as everyone knows, often these issues aren't allowed to be discussed in the wider world of politics and public life. But you can't have a serious discussion about labour markets - and the HC/PH trades in particular - without at least broaching the subject.

I mean, it's a 'taxi' trade publication, not the Guardian or James O'Brien show

https://www.taxi-point.co.uk/post/evolv ... n-one-word

I'm not sure there has been a move away from clubs to house parties. My view is there has been a move away from both.

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IDFIMH

100% this.

People no longer have to wait at a rank or walk around trying to flag a cab down.

They just go to their phones and press a button. They don't have to worry about finding a car that takes a card, nor have to haggle with the driver if they are going out of town.

Uber does a ton of things wrong, but they do some stuff right.

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IDFIMH