"Roland Perry" wrote in message
...
In message , at 20:31:42 on Mon, 5 Oct 2015,
tim..... remarked:

It's not necessarily important for every private hire vehicle to offer
disability access, because the are pre-booked. As long as each firm
has some minimum number of such vehicles available if requested, that
should be sufficient.

That I understand

but unless that "minimum number" is somewhat larger than you might first
calculate, you either end up with the accessible cabs waiting around all
day for the one disabled passenger, or no accessible cabs free at the
time that passenger turns up.

It's queuing theory 101, not that difficult.

to a graduate level statistician perhaps,

You do Stats 101 in the first year!

In the first year of what?

to the average numpty who runs a cab office?

You think decisions about fleet procurement are done by a numpty in the
cab office?

Yep


What's likely to happen is that there's a ready reckoner, perhaps even
stipulated by the local authority, saying something like: "fleets of 2-10
should have one accessible vehicle; 11-25 three; 26-50 four" or whatever.

But the numpty dispatcher can also use their experience to see how often a
person wanting an accessible car is kept waiting "too long", and make
recommendations to the owner.

btw, they don't sit around waiting for an accessible fare - they take
regular passengers if there's no booking in the queue for an accessible
ride.

so then the disabled pax might have an hour wait for a free cab

tim


--
Roland Perry