Call Sign March 2010 - Page 30 - Should Private Hire have meters?

Having lived within a licensing authority where both Hackney and PH have meters in their vehicles, it has puzzled me why there is such a lack of enthusiasm by TfL to do the same here. But then I looked at the PH bill and it clearly states that meters will not be permitted. Well maybe that was a mistake because you hear stories of them charging Ł25 to go from Leicester Square to Victoria etc. Indeed, taxis are accountable for every penny they charge, so shouldn’t PH be too? Six years on, I‘d say PH has legitimacy without accountability. Can a PH driver be charged for taking a devious route? How can the public get their money back? What if the driver changes the cost of the journey half way through? Who sets their fares in the first place? To the public, their service and price is done on a take it or leave it basis - or get a taxi. TfL’s own guidelines are that you approach the PH company first before getting them involved. It is unquestionable that our fares have reached levels that some say are unjustified, yet it wasn’t long ago that our fares were competitive. Via the cost index, politicians put changes upon us that forced the meter up. Ken Livingstone was a great one for this. The problem was that PH didn’t have such demands placed on them, so the gap has got wider and wider - a simple political ploy and good way of getting more work into PH to make it worthwhile being licensed. Remember the days when a new cab cost Ł18k? The fares were much lower in comparison, but the work plentiful. Today, cabs are at their most expensive; our charges are at their most expensive and the work has dried up. If the mayor wants any new changes to our working practices / vehicles, City Hall should pay us via subsidies and not our meters. But from a punter’s point of view, what represents good value? If the trade were to demand that PH had meters in	With reports of huge sums being asked for short journeys by PH, Call Sign’s Richard Potter poses the question... Should Private Hire have meters?
	*Richard Potter asks whether PH should have meters* their vehicles to make them more accountable, stop them from making it up and put up their costs, then the price gap would get smaller. Companies who use PH may say if they are paying that much for a PHV, they may as well get a taxi. If you are an account in Finsbury Square and your PH account charges, say Ł25 to go to E14 because they don’t really want to service all the account, then if the PH vehicle had a meter, that account could demand a meter fare and not a price made by inconvenience. If the PH company then had to cover all aspects of their accounts and not just give us the jobs they didn’t want to do, they would become stretched and more work would come our way. Personally, I think the product and service we supply is excellent and we are only expensive by comparison, but our prices should be put on hold through the recession. If we lowered our prices, so would PH. There has been plenty of talk about "winning work back." Force PH charges up and narrow the gap, we would	then win plenty of work back! It’s all about cost -accountants demand best value and aren’t that fussed about who supplies it. And Yellow Badge drivers...? Yellow badge drivers have meters and drive taxis, so does that make them ok? In February 2009, a Dial-a-Cab driver wrote in Call Sign about yellow badge drivers plying for hire outside their licensed area. Well the more you scratch the surface, the more you find. The other evening I was working on Clapham Junction rank and the two drivers in front of me were having a chat - both wearing yellow badges. I didn’t realise it at the time, but Clapham Junction is a green badge only rank. You hear of sightings all over, with yellow badges working at Heathrow on Christmas Day because the attendants don’t work and it is a known fact that yellow badge drivers work Wimbledon fortnight and then disappear again! I even heard a story about the yellow badge driver from Essex who was a regular at a major hotel near Hyde Park corner! He handed his taxi in to take a holiday and his garage rented it back to another driver whose cab was in overhaul and who was also a regular at the same hotel. He said he knew the driver and cab to the garage owner, who then went on to spill the beans. Call me a cynic, but with trade bodies refusing to allow big increases in green badge requisitions through a quickie Knowledge, flooding the suburbs may have been a indirect ploy to boost numbers of central drivers, as yellow badges looked to pastures new simply to make a living, whilst legally making their boundaries bigger and bigger. Richard Potter (T51)

Call Sign Home Page

Page 32