bloodnock wrote:
whys the price going up?....the cost of refining hasnt, greedy, greedy petrol stations....its not on...1200 workers whining about contributing a measily 6% towards a gold plated pension...and a shut down which could cost the country billions of pounds in lost manufacturing of all goods and disruptin all other services...line em up and fire them one by one...any one got any sympathy for these strikers that are striking even though they earn more a year than we could ever dream of earning..arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!
Supply and demand. The supply goes down, the demand remains the same or increases, the price goes up. Simple as.
The interesting thing is that by and large de-restriction wouldn't necessarily mean an increase in supply of taxis. At least not directly correlated to the number of vehicles licensed. That's because a taxi is of absolutely no use without a driver.
So it is the driver that becomes the key element in the supply/demand curve.
The number of drivers remains the same, supply stays the same, the price stays the same, demand stays the same, earnings stay the same.
Of course, there may be some adjustment here because the hours worked by drivers may vary at the edges. Owners may have to work a bit longer. Drivers operating on their own may iniutially want to work on. But this would soon settle down as drivers mostly returned to their previous working regimes. And owners revised their rentals to reduce the incentive for drivers to leave and operate their own vehicle.
No real change, no real effect on work levels.
Interestingly, there is an argument that increased supply, improved service level, could justify an increase in price. Under the right conditions we could see an improvement in the working conditions of drivers who could meet their income needs in a shorter time because of a higher tariff.
Of course, in the price/demand/supply curve, any price increase could reduce demand and we'd be back to square one. However, it could just be that if there was a more readily available supply of taxis, then more people might just be persuaded to use them, particularly at peak times. Any increase in demand here could lead to a containment of price, perhaps even a reduction. The trade would benefit from more bums on seats, and other transport groups would have a lesser incentive to introduce services in direct competition. Could just be that we could win our market share back.
Now, this is playing both ends of the probability curve. It could be up to the trade to influence which one synopsis would apply. A trade prepared to promote itself would be able to drive the market forward, in the face of competition.
And the investment in the professionalism of the driver, through real quality controls, would be the backbone of success.
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rationed to £10 per car 
