Taxi Driver Online

With revised working hours legislation now on the horizon, has anyone started using a three shift system yet, rather than the almost universal 2 x 12 hour shift system.

Example:

1) Shorten the night shift by 2 hours to 10 hours, making the day shift now 14 hours.

2) Split the day shift into 2 x 7 hour shifts - morning and afternoon. So with a 5am changeover that would be 5am to midday and midday to 7pm - (giving plenty of time for family commitments at either one end of the day or the other).

3) The night shift would give: 5 x 10 = 50 hours or 6 x 10 = 60 hours.

4) The day shift would be: 5 x 7 = 35 hours or 6 x 7 = 42 hours.

5) There would be 10 extra hours available to the day shift:

Fri and Sat night 7pm to midnight (for the morning shift)
Fri and Sat night midnight to 5am (for the afternoon shift)

Daily charges would now be split three ways instead of two, which would mean a big reduction for each driver and which would help to offset any reduction in weekly hours.

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The higher the fewer.

Interesting.

But I don't have a problem with a shorter working week.

If you have 1000 drivers working 70,000 hours doing, say, 210,000 jobs before the 48 hour week lark, what would we have after?

We would have 1000 drivers working 48,000 doing the same 210,000 jobs.

Same money, same punters, better life.

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IDFIMH

I'm a controller and I do 12hr shifts, 4 on, 4 off.
I like the 4on 4 off, it means I have four days off if I don't go on the road.
THe only problem with 12hr shifts is no break, 45 minutes off for some food would be nice but inpractical.

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stressed controller!!!

I think you would be needing more than 1000 drivers to cover that amount of work in that amount of time. (At your above quoted average of 3 jobs per hour per driver.)

About another four hundred and fifty nine extra drivers should just about do it.

However I don't think that your rather extreme example of a 70 hour week being reduced to a 48 hour week, per driver, is the issue I was trying to address here. (Although it is a very important one and really deserves a thread of its own.)

No, the issue here that I was trying to address was how to cover the same amount of work with more or less the same number of drivers but using shorter working periods than the 12 hour ones that are most commonly used in the trade at the moment.

Using an average driver's working week of 55 to 60 hours and an average weekly job rate of 2.5 per hour (rather than 3) would be much more representative I think - and those hours would almost certainly be within the legislative limits too (at least for a while).

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The higher the fewer.

The rules state your only allowed to work 8 hours max without a break

Don't see why a controller's shifts couldn't be varied either. The above quoted 3 shift pattern could be just as applicable to the base staff as to the drivers.

If you want to see a complicated shift system for controllers rambo, try checking out air traffic controllers. They are very susceptible to peaks and troughs in concentration and so their supervisors try and maximise their on shift concentration, which results in some very weird and complicated shift rostering. Bet they don't know what day it is half the time

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The higher the fewer.

2.5 jobs per hour ....................... for Hackney Carriages.

Doesn't happen here in Gateshead ............... driver regularly wait an hour in between jobs at all times .................... 2am Sunday morning 15 taxis waiting for fares outside one of the nightclubs.

Over an average over a week I would say Gateshead drivers would be looking at approx 1.5 jobs per hour.

B. Lucky

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"Here's a simple solution. If you don't want to pay more for a premium service then wait in the queue, problem solved".
Skull on TDO

TF pi$$ed on his chips.

Well at least we now know where the thickest drivers can be found.

At www.fish4.co.uk there are over 500 jobs within a 20 mile radius of Newcastle.

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IDFIMH

And all you need to invent to make this work, is a time machine. Or have you already done that?

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Former taxi driver

This WTR lark is a nightmare,at the moment you can opt out.REST periods are COMPULSORY you dont take it have an accident involving a fatality you will get at least 5yrs poss7 .Also included COMPULSORY holiday entitlement.All connected with self employed,worker under the direction of company issue which Rambo undoubtedly is.I dont think drivers will ever restricted to 48hrs poss 60.
ORGANISE EDUCATE AGITATE!!!!!!

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The views expressed by this contributor do not neccesarily reflect the policys of The GMB Nationally or of the GMB London Region.

I think there might be some leeway given when the 8 hours (say) is not all used in actual work. If there was a percentage allowed for waiting for work ie not actually working but available, then a ten hour night shift would probably be ok.

There is also an issue with the time between periods of work, which should be a clear 11 hours. In the above example a morning day driver opting to work Friday morning (5am to midday) and then Friday evening (7pm to midnight) would only have had a break of 7 hours. But here again there might also be some flexibility because of the generous breaks that the driver would have had during the previous few shifts.

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The higher the fewer.

Really can't see this working as it will mean that for major airport runs - allowing 4 hours each way and an hour in the airport to pick up it'll need two drivers! And what happens to the longer runs that I do - some mean a 9 - 10 hour each way trip - will I have to have a second driver for them as well? Is the fare paying passenger going to wear the increase in fares to cover this as well?

As for operators, and yes I used to be one, we always worked 8 hour rolling shifts - 8am - 4pm, 4pm - midnight, midnight to 8am; along side - 10am - 6pm, 6pm to 2am and 2am to 10am, with the third operator shift being noon to 8pm, 8pm to 4am and 4am to noon. And yes, I was just as guilty of it but the main reason ops are so tired is that they drive cabs in between shifts, or cover a school run, or an airport. Sound familiar?

I'm pretty sure a degree of flexibilty is factored in i.e. if you do 10 hours one day you can only do 6 the next, or something like that.

The real issue is defining downtime and working time. If time sat waiting at a rank, or parked up waiting for a radio job is classed as working time, then we are f***ed.

But I doubt it will.

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IDFIMH

if we are self employed we can work what we like, and if as is muted in some corners they will change that then io suggest we start our 40 hour week at midnight on sunday and finish at 16.00 on tue , alonf with all the S/E shopkeepers , resturanters, takeaways video shops, builders etc etc, bring the country to its knees and then tell them what we are going to do.

I also think, with waiting time, 60's a reasonable figure to be working on - at least for now anyway.

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The higher the fewer.