Taxi Driver Online

How so Sussex, how did they manage to do that. What loophole did they manage to exploit and has it been eradicated?

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The higher the fewer.

The problem you have is that the second driver only provides a fixed income and therefore any profit as you call it is fixed. Where does your growth come from? If you take away the expenses incurred by having a second driver you might find that working a few extra hours yourself would deliver a similar return?



I'm confused what you mean by customers? I've been doing this job a long time and I don't have any customers of my own, so if you can elaborate, it would be most helpful.

In respect of growth I'm puzzled at your assumption that a single driver can obtain growth? If you were operating as private hire and obtaining bookings over the phone or whatever method you prefer then I might agree there is opportunity for growth. For the simple reason that you can go out and win contracts, which under normal circumstances should bring in more work. That's growth but you didn't present a hypothetical scenario that had the ingredient of expanding into the private hire sector. In any case you don't need your own cab to do any of the things I just mentioned.

All in all you're left with the flat rate payment of your driver which will only marginally increase every time you get a fare rise? The growth element is non-existent and if it was, then every driver has the same opportunity as you to obtain it regardless if they own their own cab.

Another reason why your submission about growth is misleading is because under normal circumstances growth comes by way of identifying your market and being able to continually produce a product that people or companies want to buy. Growth brings expansion but the only way you could expand is if you go to the bank and get another loan on your property to buy another cab and plate thus thrusting you deeper into debt.

The problem with the cab trade is that you have to rely on the public to utilise your services in order to make a living and that could mean five days sat around doing very little.

In short your single vehicle business model is down to the whim of the public and the only business model you have is by virtue of you being out there making yourself available for hire. You can't force people out of their homes to spend money on Taxis just so you can make a living?

Without browsing through my data it is common knowledge that passenger journeys have grown year on year, so in that respect there is national growth. You might find that much of that growth has gone to the private hire sector whether it be private hire utilising private hire drivers, or private hire utilising what we know as Taxis, or in many cases both? The inference here is that radio circuit operators are obtaining the growth by winning new contracts and marketing their product successfully. If you want to introduce this side of the equation into your business plan then by all means do so but the business model is not restricted to the single taxi owner.



In the real world if you borrow 50k for a plate and 10k for a second hand cab, your going to be paying back in the region of 70k and for that you would have to take out a loan guaranteed on property. Repayments over five years will cost you 1,166 pounds per month that’s over 250 a week. You can't turn round and say you will get the loan over a longer period because that would be an even bigger gamble. When you look at the large sums involved it is no wonder that people who go into such massive debt to buy a plate are worried out of their skin that they have no control over events?

The plus side if there is one is that in a restricted authority you're buying job security and you will probably have less competition at taxi ranks. In an unrestricted authority you still have job security but you don't have to pay 50 grand for the privilege. If any of the following bodies ever brought about deregulation before you had paid back your loan then you would be right in the chit.

Local council,
National Government,
EU.
Judiciary.

I suppose these scenarios were calculated into your decision to buy a plate?



I don't know where you derive that theory from or who's hypothesis you've been reading but plate values fluctuate on sentiment, stability, the power of earnings coupled with the size of the weekly rent. They are the four basic overriding factors. Stability secures the sentiment and that is why in any one given situation if stability is in the balance then sentiment will be low which in turn has the effect of panic selling. If you want a classic example of Sentiment and Stability take a look at Trafford. Last year their plates were trading at 35 grand today you can get one for a song. I could give you 54 other examples of similar scenarios but I know you're not oblivious to how events might unfold?

The sting in the tale as far as Edinburgh plates are concerned is that there is a rather important court case coming up early in the New Year. Depending on what the Judiciary say in terms of the unlawful conduct of City of Edinburgh council you just might have a lot more plates on the town than you contemplated. In fact you might have at least 41 more plates and if Dundee is any guide you might have a dam sight more. You should not forget that it was a court case that brought about the change of policy in Dundee and it was a court case that lead to the change of policy in Trafford. I would not under estimate the power of the judiciary to effect change and I will be very surprised if change does not come after the ruling we look forward to in March.

In consideration on whether or not to spend a large amount of money on a license plate, it would be wise to consider all the financial implications of success and failure. If you do that at least you can say you considered every angle before you made the gamble of placing your faith in someone else's ability to effect change.

Regards

JD

If someone leaves the trade, then their plate should be returned back to the council, to then be issued to the first lad on the waiting list.

If the person leaving sells his plate then the lad buying is queue jumping the lads on the waiting list.

One other reason I keep mentioning queue jumpers is because it really pi**ed off a past member. So I keep saying it just in case he is having a sly peep.

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IDFIMH

Agreed. So why isn't the seller restricted to whom he can sell to? How about if he were restricted to accepting sealed bids from the first five or so names on the list.

Not sure how that would stand in law, but it sure makes sense to me and I bet it does to those on the list too.

Can't see much point in having a list if it's not going to be used.

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The higher the fewer.

It undoubtedly would, but I would then be working more hours than I would really like to, which is a major, major problem within the taxi trade in general.

Furthermore, and just as importantly, if I did as you suggest I would not be providing the consistency of service that a 24 hour coverage of the vehicle would provide, with the possibility that customers would be left stranded at busy (but unpopular for many drivers) times.

The growth comes from the repeat custom that is the hallmark of a reliable service. By service, I mean the taxi trade as a whole and not any one individual within it, or alternatively and more relevantly perhaps, one side of the trade compared with the other.

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The higher the fewer.

I don't wish to bang on about it JD because I've already broached the subject in the last posting - but if you don't regard the people that you drive about in your taxi as your customers, then you have a problem.

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The higher the fewer.

I can only repeat what I said:

"plate values will always increase in value if customer numbers are increasing. "

Perhaps I should have added " in a restricted market" but we both knew that anyway.

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The higher the fewer.

Wrong!

Here in Edinburgh customer numbers are decreasing yet plate values have doubled since the start of the decline.

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All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
George Orwell, "Animal Farm"

I don't regard them as my customers for the simple reason they are not my customers. I sit on a rank and if someone wants to hire me then I'm available to be hired. I'm sure the punter who hired me doesn't go around saying "my taxi drivers". Likewise I don't go around saying my customers because the likelihood is that I will never see them again.

It might be different if your referring to private hire radio work because in most cases a certain percentage of that work will be made up of regular clientele but I've never heard a cab driver in Manchester refer to punters as my customers. I wonder if GBC calls them my customers?

The people in this Town get hackney cabs as a necessity but I'm sure if those same people were at home and wanted to go into Town they would phone a private hire radio company. How am I supposed to react if my customers phone private hire, they wouldn't really be my customers would they? And how are private hire supposed to react when it's me taking their customers home?

When you state my customers you sound as though you're implying there is some kind of binding obligation on both parties but the simple fact is, that once I take a punter from A to B I may never see them again from that day till the day I die. That's why I don't count them as my customers.

Regards

JD

Onzon, In less than twelve months Plate values in Manchester went down from 50k to 35k and now stand at 40k. We didn't have a loss of punters but its funny how in the quitest part of the year, excepting January that plate values have increased from 35k to 40k. The five grand increase cant be down to more work because we have very little work right now.

Liverpool plate values have increased in the last few months but it was only a few weeks ago that they were complaining they had no work.

Regards

JD

I'm wondering if an underlying attitude here:



...might eventually result in the outcome described here:



the former quote by JD and the latter by Skull - both in different places, but together neatly describing the inevitable outcome stemming from an indifferent attitude with regard to the trades source of income.

It is my experience that perceived value is very important to a customer and that it has a reciprocal effect when dealing with them as passengers, in that if you treat them with respect they will generally do the same with you and continue to use the service that you provide.

That's certainly not something that only applies to radio circuit work, as you imply JD.

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The higher the fewer.

Tell me Onzon, how can you tell your night driver, day driver or whatever, what hours he must work? What if your driver only want's to work 3 nights a week? Where does that leave your 24-hour coverage? And when he does work, what if he only wants to work 8 hours?

I'm wondering why you are so concerned about 24 hour coverage when you yourself can only work 12 of those hours and you have no say whatsoever in the other 12 hours.

If you want to work 12 hours then fine but that's all you can rely on because you have no say in how your driver works and if you tried to have a say you wouldn't have a driver.



So now you're saying its not your own personal manufactured growth it's the collective growth of the Edinburgh Taxi trade but how much of that growth will effect your 12 hour shift? In fact what level of growth have you achieved in the last 12 months? It was only a few weeks ago that Edinburgh cabbies were screaming they had no work. You only have to look at the comments on the Fastblacks site to see their opinion on growth.

I think we can possibly squash the theory about your own personal growth because you have no way of obtaining any apart from as you say offering a good service? You have no regular customers, you have no radio system of your own, the only thing you have is cab worth ten grand which allows you to ply for hire on the street and a plate worth 50k plus interest, not paid for.

Sorry to sound so pessimistic, to you, your business model in respect of growth may seem practical but achieving it is entirely different.

Regards

JD

OK JD I'm quite willing to accept your indisputably correct statement there and leave this part of the discussion for another time perhaps.

I am curious however about the list that we were talking about earlier. As you know I am not particularly in favour of a market in plate values but I see it as an inevitable side effect of some sort of regulation of their availability, which I am pretty sure is a necessary thing, although not necessarily a permanently necessary thing (if that makes sense).

It would seem, by reading Sussex's comment above and by reading some of the recent comments on Edinburgh's forum, that this list has a set of rules attached to it that have loopholes in large enough to drive an Edinburgh bus through.

How can this be right, with such large sums of money changing hands, it should follow that such transactions should be conducted within the strictest guidelines and under the most careful scrutiny?

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The higher the fewer.

We may both be right here - but I'm not an economist so I can't really say for certain.

Could we be arguing about two different things perhaps? You about short term fluctuations in price and me about long term trends?

Perhaps someone can help us out here.

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The higher the fewer.

Nothing short term about 5 years.

Customer numbers have steadily decreased while driver's become more available with rentals topping £300 for 6or7 nights. Licence Plates have more than double form around £20,000 5 years ago to over £50,000 at today's date.

The key factor being the availability of drivers-the fewer shifts-the more money being charged-the more driver's are being pressured into paying for plates to secure their employment-the more they must believe they are buying a business and not just gambling away 50K.

The business model being used is, make someone desperate enough and they will believe anything.

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All animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others.
George Orwell, "Animal Farm"