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[email protected] · April 26th 16, 07:28 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(JNugent) wrote:

On 26/04/2016 18:19, wrote:
In article ,
(JNugent) wrote:

On 25/04/2016 14:18, David Cantrell wrote:

On Sun, Apr 24, 2016 at 06:13:47PM +0100, JNugent wrote:

There's always been a good case for the advance booking period for a
so-called "private hire car" to be at least twenty-four hours.

No there hasn't.
Imagine, for example, that you are in an industrial estate in Peckham.
There are no black cabs cruising the industrial estate looking for
passengers.
How do you get home?

The whole reason why unlicensed* "private hire cars" (so-called) can
operate with their unlicensed* drivers is a loophole in the law which
distinguishes immediate hirings from advance bookings.

Immediate hirings - taxis.

Advance bookings - taxis (of course) *or* "private hire cars".

But unless a significant minimum period for that advance booking is
established and enforced, in practice, the law prohibiting unlicensed
plying-for-hire cannot be operated properly.

[* "licensed" here means licensed as a taxi or as a taxi-driver.]

Isn't the number of taxis limited a certain number while there are no
such limits to the number of hire cars because the law doesn't allow it?

No.

That was certainly the situation in Cambridge until 2001, with the
number of taxi licences clearly far too few for the business on offer.
I'm surprised you would support such monopolistic practice if there is
a limit.

The Transport Act of either 1995 or 2005 (I forget which, though 1995
rings the louder bell) forbade such limitation of the number of taxi
vehicles licences.

Limitation - if used (it isn't used everywhere) - now has to be
determined by quasi-scientific means. The usual method is to survey
the trade at "busy" times, whereas the correct method would be to
survey the trade at non-busy times, eg: a fine dry Tuesday
mid-morning in April.

Such limits are still legal outside London since the 1985 Transport Act (the
one that deregulated buses) but as you say only when supported by survey
evidence of "no unmet demand".

The trade are notorious for all sorts of dodgy practices while such surveys
are carried out to persuade survey firms there is no unmet demand.

After Labour regained control of Cambridge City Council in 2014 they
re-imposed a limit at the number of licences then held. To be fair, without
a limit the number of hackneys had been pretty static for some time
following a sharp rise after the Council, under Liberal Democrat control,
removed the limit in 2001.

One important difference between Cambridge and London is that hire cars have
meters and, though they don't have to, do in fact charge the same fares as
hackneys (with the city at least). Several operators have mixed fleets with
hackneys, city-licensed hire cars and South Cambs DC licensed hire cars
(which outnumber the rest by a large margin). So someone ring them up may
get any time of vehicle but will always be charged the same fare.

--
Colin Rosenstiel