"Martin Underwood" wrote in message
...
If taxis are waiting up to 3 hours between returning to Heathrow and
reaching a rank where they can pick up a passenger, doen't this suggest
that
there are too many taxis? The ideal number would be such that there is no
queue in a feeder park and as a taxi leaves the head of a queue at one
terminal, another is just being marshalled to the end of that queue.
Obviously you need *some* slack in the system, but three hours seems to be
excessive.

95% of the time there are far too many taxis. Unfortunately, the decision as
to the numbers appears to be based on the demand for cabs during those peak
times, such as a rainy Saturday night.

As a cab driver myself, I've often wondered if there'd be a benefit to
permitting knowledge boys in the latter stages of the knowledge to work
Friday and Saturday nights in the West End only. I've been out for 3 years
now, and I know I could have done the job 6 months before I got my badge.

That way, the public are happy, as there's a greater supply of cabs during
peak times, cab garages are happy as they have an increased market to rent
cabs out to, and cab drivers are happy as the constant pressure to increase
the number of cab drivers would largely cease.

"Spicknspan" wrote in message
...

95% of the time there are far too many taxis. Unfortunately,
the decision as to the numbers appears to be based on the
demand for cabs during those peak
times, such as a rainy Saturday night.

As a cab driver myself, I've often wondered if there'd be
a benefit to permitting knowledge boys in the latter stages
of the knowledge to work Friday and Saturday nights in the
West End only. I've been out for 3 years now, and I know
I could have done the job 6 months before I got my badge.

I would have thought many of the runs from Central London on Friday and
Saturday nights would go way out into the suburbs, and since All-London
knowledge students don't do that until the last few months of their
training, this is the time of the week when they are least fit to do the
job. Also, where are the knowledge students going to get taxis from? If they
only work 8 hours a week, they won't be able to afford to hire a taxi.

A better idea would be to allow qualified suburban yellow-badge taxis to
pick up at the directional rank at Cranbourn St, since they are better
qualified to take people to the suburbs than the All-London green-badges,
and it's stupid to have them driving an empty taxi back to their suburb at
the time of peak demand. They should be charged a sizeable fee to pick up
here, otherwise it might be in their interest to repeatedly work the
Cranbourn St rank, driving back to it empty. This would probably require the
directional rank marshalls to split destinations by the 9 yellow badge
sectors instead of NE - NW - SE - SW as now.

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes