Planning for new taxi network underway!

Ah Patherat now I want to catch a bus.

I used to drive cabs for Les Wassell years ago when he was incharge of all the disabled taxis. He ran a much better system than what they have in place now and I could never understand why they took the management of these cabs away from him. I say good luck to him.
On another note about cabs, when I drove the disabled cabs they were like a stretch limo with a bubble in the middle. I think some punters used to think they were stretch limos as well, as I had passengers getting extremely romantic on a number of occasions in the back seat during the early hours. Never happened in a normal cab, just the disabled.
Remember, always check the seats before you sit down.

The ACCC can’t do squat about petrol, Thumper. The only way it could make a difference would be to somehow prove that the petrol companies are colluding. That, my friend, is a profoundly difficult thing to do.

I’d say the reason that petrol prices keep going up is cause of that pesky free-market thingy (i.e – once the petrol company establishes that you’ll pay $1.50/litre, and buy the same amount of petrol, why not charge more and take the damn profit).

Petrol companies aren’t in the business of public service.

As for the taxi thing – I’m pretty sure that collusion of all types is covered by Pt4 of the Trade Practices Act – I don’t know if there’s an equivalent local statute.

I usually catch Taxi’s quiet a bit when In Canberra however imagine my surprise when I arrived back in Canberra early August for a couple of weeks and tried to book a cab.
Canberra has to be by the worst taxi service just about anywhere especially with the new voice rec software. Why would the ACT Govt have any interest in keeping a monopoly?
Here in Singapore we have more then 10 Taxi companies and more then 22,000 cabs. hehe 30min ride usually around 15 Sing or 12 Aussie. Airport to the City around the same

If it’s a govco regulated price then they will be forced to compete on service. Excellent!

it’s not price collusion when it’s a government regulated price.

which it is.

I would have thought collusion would be against fair trading laws.

Does the Government regulate what the taxi’s can charge? If they do, and competitors cant charge less that Aerial for the same service then the main potential point of difference in what would be a homogeneous market would be customer service.

competition improves service but can also lead to collusion.

and of course the new network can be created and bought out by a cashed up monopolist facing falling profits.

i wonder what legislation covers this in the territory.

It amazed me that they keep trying to improve the system, when what it clearly needs is an easy option to talk to a person. They talk of educating the public to use the system – well that won’t work for tourists, or people who catch taxis only occasionally. And there will always be various names for one place, or new streets/suburbs/restaurants etc. And ther will always be old/deaf/peopoe with accents who can’t understnad the robot voice. I changed health insurance to one that actually answers the phone, so I would definitely change taxi service if I could talk to a person.