Taxi Driver Online

I used to be a proponent of de-limitation, but I'm now having second thoughts.

The reason is simply that without some control you end up with an over supply which simply drives down fares and pushes up the number of hours drivers work just to earn a reasonable living.

If you work 37.5 hrs as a typical Office worker does then you'll be on the breadline. Even doing 45-50 hours as most of us at least do is no use these days.

If there was no control over the number of supermarkets you'd have Asda Tesco Sainsbury Morrisson Lidl Aldi Somerfield Waitrose etc, all in every town killing off smaller shops and reducing the town centres to banks and estate agents. And of course there would be price competition driving down prices.......sound familiar?
Every company employs the correct number of workers for it's workload. The taxi business should be no different.

I have changed my mind about the principle, however I'm not sure what the best way or the correct levels should be and I think PH should be limited as well.

Maybe 50% of a town's PH should become HC as well as the HC already in place then there should be a cap on at that level, but maybe only HC that are independent (ie NOT on a radio circuit should be allowed to pick up from ranks). Then PH should be abolished! Remaining HC drivers could work on circuits and pick up if approached on the street.

I haven't thought all this through ... I am making it up as I type but I hope it provokes a debate, but that we can avoid slagging off each other personally.

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Our safety is Paramount

Welcome back into the light my son

PS; your gonna get it now

CC

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

I can see some plus and some minus points in there.

Have you just got a plate then?

On a more serious note, it's a good thing to keep an open mind.

As for the pro and cons of de-limitation, providing standards are kept high I can't see why anyone should object.

Other than those who paid bundles to queue jump the waiting list.

But I'm interested to here why you think number restrictions are good for all drivers.

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IDFIMH

I can see your dilemma.

But the problem is quite simply that there is not a level playing field.

Unfortunately we've become embroiled in a system which encourages injustice. It's called the status quo.

The problem isn't whether taxis should have restrictions or not, it's whether there should be any restrictions at all.

Other markets operate according to the market principle, where the market decides the level of supply. This is a basic economic truth.

It should apply to taxis too. The problem is that the Captain Cabs of this world recognise that your equality impinges on their freedom to profit from you.

CC welcomes you back to his line of thinking. You're manna from heaven to his vested interest. He's like the carrion crow, he will feed off you. He is like a parasite. Sucking your lifeblood. You will sweat in Labour to maintain his standard of living.

Read "The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists" by Robert Tressell. Understand that Captain Cab is Mugsborough's Rushton, owner of the sweatshop.

I have nothing against PH. I wish them well. They serve their public, their customers. I believe here in Edinburgh, where they seem a professional lot, they serve them well. That's why they've made great inroads to our taxi market.

My beef is that I want to compete with them on an equal footing. Nothing more. Nothing less.

But taxis in Edinburgh are restricted. Because the council is driving its own interests. It owns the bus company. That bus company has invested considerable summs in more buses. More night buses. It's even introduced its own taxibus service to the airport, taking work directly from my taxi trade. I suffer because the divided taxi trade is more intent on tugging forelocks and supporting the very council services which are sucking the trade's lifeblood from it.

We don't need limitation. We need de-limitation so that we can cpmpete with PH and our own council interests. We need to win our customers back so that when they think efficient personal transport they think taxis. When they come down from their brownstones on an early evening they know that they can put out their hand and a black will pull in and take them to their destination for a reasonable charge.

We need the freedom to compete so we can win our market back providing the quality service we are renowned for.

We don't need to pummel PH into the ground to achieve this. There is ample room for both services.

But taxi trades the length and breadth of the nation need to be able to compete on an equal footing. We don't need a dual licensing system. There should only be one. Able to pick up from the street. In a range of vehicles which give the public the choice to meet THEIR needs. 7 or 8 seaters. Cars with turning circles. But all with fully trained, fully vetted drivers, knowledgeable enough to do the job without depending on satellite systems, and able to communicate in the mother tongue.

Limitation only ever limits your mind. That's the Captain Cab way.

Free your mind. Free your customer's minds. Reap the rewards such free thinking will bring you.

Here's Skull's post on another thread. It's appropraite to your question. This what the CCs and Mr Ts need. This their vision. You gonna survive in this? Do YOU trust them?

Come on John T tell me where I've got it wrong?


‘Increasing the number of employees increases employer power’.

In practice the larger the available employment pool, the easier it is to control the work force. This leads to high employment for low paid workers.

This simple fact translates into hike rentals and increased plate premiums against a backdrop of falling customer numbers. The only people not competing are the owners, who, for the most part, depend on increasing driver numbers to fuel their employment status. The end result being more people at the bottom, each a little unit of profit, toiling away into the wee small hours earning more for the owner.

Drivers are a commodity to be traded between owners, nothing more.

The only way this can be achieved is by restricting the choice of employment opportunities for drivers’ - limiting the number of available shifts by artificially capping the number of vehicles. The effect this has is more drivers crammed into fewer shifts, paying more money, while earning less, just to have a job.

With the upwards pressure on driver numbers, the Edinburgh Cab trade is now well on its way to having a part-time labour force. Soon you will have Mon-Thursday day/night drivers - Friday-Sun day/night drivers. The week will be split into part-time units. A driver’s rental (if there are rentals) will be the equivalent of a half or a third of the clock. You might even be paid by the hour.


The trades so called representative are well aware of where this is heading. They know the only way to increase their status is by having greater control over the workforce, and that means denying the driver the opportunity to compete for his own market. The council on the other hand want to protect their arms length Bus Company, their new Tram system, along with Private Hire interests, increasing the employment pool of the low paid workers.


Read it and weep boys, and remember, I told you so.

Embrace working longer hours, embrace the thought of bankruptcy, embrace the free market were the lunatics hold the keys to the asylum..... embrace delimitation....

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

\:D/\:D/

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IDFIMH

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

I see you recognised my.. Point..... a bunch of fruitcakes.....

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Justice for the 96. It has only taken 27 years...........repeat the same lies for 27 years and the truth sounds strange to people!

SOME other markets operate according to the market of supply and demand..................but there that doesn't mean it is a "basic economic truth".
It is simply one economic theory which is acceptable in massive markets such as baked beans but not in more sophisticated, technicallly advanced markets. Taxis are not a mass market product so simple rules such as supply and demand do not apply without some modification. This is the same as councils not allowing a local shopping parade to have more than one ,...say Bookmakers, on it. Simple supply and demand would say let them have as many Bookmakers as they like.. they'll compete and punters will get better odds.
HOWEVER, there are other considerations than simply giving punters the best odds so councils decide to apply a limit to them.

Please see the later part of my post.we could actually be talking the same language

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Our safety is Paramount

jasbar,
I can see where you're coming from but I think the extreme situation in Edinburgh is colouring your views too strongly.
As I see it you could solve a lot of problems by allowing only one plate per driver, but that driver could rent his cab out to up to 3 other drivers per week.
The numbers cap would be placed at a much much higher level than now and PH would not exist.
Plates could not be bought and sold but if the owner gave it up then one of his current renters would be eligible for it to be allocated based on longest service.
This would ensure that all drivers could earn a decent living without an over-supply of cabs. It would stop companies treating drivers as their income and start treating them as their customers.
And everything in the garden would be rosy said the tooth fairy!!!!!!!!!!
ps JamTart or Hobo?

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Our safety is Paramount

Please see my various posts in this thread however I am seeing the effect of totally out of control numbers in the Crawley PH trade.

When a punter can pick a phone up at 2030 on a Saturday night and get a cab within 5 mins that means supply is matching peak demand....... therefore that means a massive oversupply the rest of the week. And it shows, we are waiting for ages between jobs and the PH operators don't give a flying f*ck
.
They issue letters of offer to prospective new drivers every week to allow them to take their badges with the council and reliable established drivers can go and hang themselves.
The more drivers they have, the more money they make!

Crawley is a delimited Borough and HC numbers have gone from 79 to 104 in the last 2 years. But it is PH numbers that are really out of control and that is even with a knowledge and DSA TaxiDrivers test to pass as well as the usual CRB and Medical.

I've looked into the pit and it is black!

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Our safety is Paramount

Kinda makes me wonder how London survives without limitation of numbers.

What makes you think that councils can operate the market better than a free market?

We already have a substantially de-restricted market in Edinburgh. Unlimited private hire, unlimited council buses, unlimited council taxi buses. It's just the taxi trade that is restricted. This is fair?

Do you honestly believe that the business plans of PH companies, and the council's bus company, would be the same if taxis were allowed to operate on an equal footing?

I wonder about the lengths council officials go to in order to protect the status quo. What incentive is there for them to do so? After all, unrestricted numbers don't mean a reduction in quality. The council's existing procedures prevent any deterioration, in both vehicle and driver quality? So what is the incentive? Couldn't be that council officials are in bed with PH and bus operators to make sure the taxi trade is stifled?

We've had regulatory committee conveners who we know have PH interests. Jack O'Donnell resigned the committee to "pursue" such interests. Previous convener Phil Attridge was known to be "in bed" with PH concerns. He was a member of a gang of four who introduced the training courses. Included in this group was Robert Millar, the current council solicitor. It was widely held that Mark Greenhalgh, a member of this gang and who sat on the Taxi Liaison Group, whose interests include the transfer of licence plates for a fee, would become "Director of Training" for the taxi trade through his Telford College connections. This failed to materialise, but only because of the stink the introduction of the course modules raised.

The connections are there. The barrel is full of rotten apples. The vested interests in the council are widely apparent. Yet you would tell me that councils such as this are better placed to control my market than market forces?

I think not. I'm hacked off with being dictated to by such vested interests.

If previous councillors (I can't speak about the new lot) were not on the take then they were just plain stupid and uncaring to go along with the manipulation of taxi licensing for clear benefit of vested interests. But there is a clear inference that the only logical explanation is that "brown envelopes" just had to be changing hands. The whole issue smells badly.

Now we have drivers coming into the trade not guaranteed to even get a drive, far less the hours they would wish to work. There is a shortage of drives that is hiking rentals beyond what is economically viable. More hours now need to be worked just to pay the rental and the fuel.

As for a five minute response at 8.30 pm on a Saturday. Get used to it. In Edinburgh PH have already captured the early Fri Sat work. This is the reality that the job has become part time. We need our own vehicles to work just when the custom is there. As for the rest of the week. Put your feet up and congratulate yourself for the time off, which you now have because you faiuled to see the competition nicking your work. You did it. You're responsible.

And you won't win this business back by maintaining the very restriction on taxis that allows you competitiors to meet any increase in your demand, before you even know that increase exists.

You're logic is that things are so bad, we should be restricting the number of taxis further, even reducing them so that the available work would be spread out among the remaining taxis in the fleet. It wouldn't happen. Your restriction is manna from heaven for a competition that expands easily.


This is why in Edinburgh the PH don't want any increase in the taxi fleet. This is why the Jacobs survey 2005 only asked PH drivers about the need for an increase in taxis. Not surprisingly they stated they didn't see any need for an increase. However, Jacobs didn't ask drivers like me.

jasbar,
I can well see how the apparently corrupt shambles in Edinburgh gives you this view.

All I can say is that not all councils are the same and the problem is the status quo.

I would advocate a completely new regime not based on the current system in any way but looking at both a reasonable supply of taxis and a reasonable rate of return for drivers.

You didn't say, jambo or hobo?
rgds
allo allo

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Our safety is Paramount