Fuel Supplies
Hopefully the fuel protesters have made their point to the Government and we will not see the fuel shortages that we experienced a few months ago. You may remember me telling you at the time that the PCO had been in touch with me twice a day during that crisis in order to monitor the situation. I am now in possession of draft letters from the PCO so that should a similar shortage arise in the near future, we will be in a position to distribute letters to all Dial-a-Cab members informing them of the priority fuel sites in and around London. A number of fuel locations have been named as 'priority sites' and certain categories of our society will now be considered priorities, including taxis.
   As I understand the situation, these sites will distribute fuel to certain sections only, with the police on hand to supervise the situation. I don't think I have ever known a situation such as this, where the PCO has pre-empted a crisis and acted sooner rather than later. I am not sure whether it is because the PCO is now part of the GLA or indeed Mayor Livingstone and the Government are just being true to their word and for the first time are actually considering taxis as part of London's integrated transport network. I do hope so and it certainly is about time!

DaC Rain Jackets
You may remember in the last edition of Call Sign, we informed you that we were supplying all members with a waterproof jacket as a Christmas gift. The first tranche of the waterproofs have now been delivered and hopefully by the time you read this, several hundred of you should have received your jacket.
   I know that the vast majority of you will be pleased with the jackets and it will go some way towards 'branding' your company

even more than we have done in the last few years. What with a fully logo'd fleet and now DaC rain jackets, we're getting there!
   I was extremely surprised by the comments and letters that I have received since the last edition of the Magazine asking who the 'Male Model' was that modelled the jacket. I must say that I was very surprised that you didn't recognise Allen Togwell! So now you know...

End of Year Report
I have just finished writing my Chairman's piece for the DaC End of Year Report and the figures are just stunning. Once again, I know that most of you will be delighted with the results. I will not go into too much detail as it would detract from the report itself, except to say that for the third consecutive year we have broken the £1m surplus - something that none of our competitors have ever managed in one year, let alone three!
   We also now have three hundred of the new MDC's fitted. Not only have we paid for them out of the day to day running of our company without having to draw on any loans, but we are still operating without an overdraft; that I feel, is quite an achievement.

Finance Manager
Our new Finance Manager is now in situ and I welcome him to Dial-a-Cab. He has many years' experience and I look forward to the contribution that he will make. I suspect the Editor will want him to write something in the near future for Call Sign, consequently I will not steal his thunder and look forward to his article.

Fleet Size
We have been increasing the size of the fleet during the past few months, but by the time you read this article we would have stopped for the time being.
It is always rather precarious getting the balance exactly right between taxis and clients, but for quite some time now I think most of you will agree that there has been a shortage of mobiles. Although we have stopped increasing the fleet for the reason I've outlined, we are taking on one or two £1m plus accounts in the New Year, so the situation will have to be reviewed then.
As the size of the fleet grows, our two largest accounts will insist upon the terms of their tender and that includes us being able to supply them with 'identifiable' taxis; that means vehicles that are fully logo'd. It is a point that has caused some consternation to them, but we have always explained that it was a service issue. That won't be the case any more, so please, make sure your vehicle is fully logo'd otherwise you will be excluded from much of this lucrative work.

And Finally...
Finally in this month's report, I would like to take the opportunity to wish you and your families a very happy Christmas and a Healthy New Year. I hope you all complete lots of account work during November and December and find the incentive schemes very lucrative.
   I look forward to presenting three lucky DaC drivers with one of the brand new Rover 25 cars that are on offer. But even if you aren't one of the lucky winners, don't forget that you can build up a nice cash sum for January by beating your 1999 November/December account trip total and getting £5 for each trip that you beat the total by (subject to the condition that you do at least 200 account trips in total). I wish you all the best of luck.

Brian Rice