Greens slam taxi reforms

With the Deanes Airliner service having just been crippled (its patronage used to be mostly public servants from DEEWR and FWO travelling for free between Snowtown and Civic on the department’s dollar), all but a few dozen of whom now work in Civic as of last November/December, now might be time to reform the airport bus service and bring it under the ACTION umbrella.

ACTION’s newer buses are way easier to board with luggage than Deanes high floor crapheaps are. Heck, even the older ACTION buses have more luggage space than your typical Deanes bus. Not that people with significant amounts of luggage would use any bus.

Basically the justification for premium buses went out the door a decade or so ago when wheelchair accessible buses became mainstream.

beh1972 said :

I’m actually agreeing with a Green for the first time ever.

This has to be a community service, there is no way the outlay needed for the special vehicle modified with a lift – while charging an affordable price for work their limited passengers give, will ever make a profit and a good service. It’s like expecting ACTION to return a profit.

This looks like a reasonable approach.
But it doesn’t fit in with what the users of these taxis want.
They want to be able to travel when and where they choose.
Not an unreasonable expectation.
Encapsulated in the term ‘comparable access’.
Unfortunately it’s unlikely that a not-for-profit community service can achieve this.
So the responsibility defaults to the ‘for profit’ sector.
But only the responsibility to provide the service – not to also subsidise the real cost of travel.
The subsidy is a community service obligation rightly borne by the community through the machinery of Government.
The difficulty is finding the right mechanism that achieves a viable service provider and a safe and reliable service.
The taxi review outcome doesn’t do either.

I’m actually agreeing with a Green for the first time ever.

This has to be a community service, there is no way the outlay needed for the special vehicle modified with a lift – while charging an affordable price for work their limited passengers give, will ever make a profit and a good service. It’s like expecting ACTION to return a profit.

That’s the way to fix the disabled taxi service – put on more taxis.
Disabled taxis already get 90% of their income from non-disabled work.
They have to or they go broke.
Now they get to compete with 70 more taxis for the bit of the market that keeps them in business.
Disabled taxis make a mess when they fall off the perch.
Big mess coming soon.