5 October 2010

Revolting taxi drivers

| johnboy
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For users of the taxi service it’s painfully obvious that at peak times there are nowhere near enough taxis on the road in Canberra.

But the ABC reports that our taxi drivers are protesting outside the Legislative Assembly today over plans to introduce more drivers:

Canberra Taxi Alliance president Mark Suckling says members of his group will gather outside the Legislative Assembly.

“We’re not actually employed by anybody, we’re self-employed business people and any additional plates that are released is obviously going to affect our income and our viability to operate a business,” he said.

Issuing more taxi plates

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I drove Aerial Taxis at one point in my life: in January, in Canberra you can easily make less than $1.00 per hour. Some of you should give it a go …

Dodgy Piglet4:13 pm 11 Nov 10

Guess so, all part of the same mob of idiots. Planning Authority is responsible for roads…. I think. Sorry new to Canberra

Dodgy Piglet said :

Solution… give the ACT Planning Authority a firm slap on the back of the head!

Aren’t TAMS responsible for roads??

Dodgy Piglet1:45 pm 11 Nov 10

More Taxi plates?? Hell no. The problem is not to do with the Cabbies…..
The hassle is infrastructure, or lack of it. What used to take about 30 mins round trip for a cab from the Airport to City can now take double that.

The reason is the roadworks and single lane “goat tracks” which Canberra is now plagued with. Cabbies, Hire Cars, Busses and the like are frustrated by the three most popular words on Canberra’s roads “Form One Lane”. The ACT Government being the Arts Degree Weilding Poindexters that they are are going to increase congestion on our roads by giving out more plates. The Cabbages cannot drive to begin with, so increasing their numbers is like leaving chocolate around cockroaches…….

The nature of Canberra is that people all arrive on the same flights in the morning and go home on the same flights in the afternoon. When combined with the brilliant design of the Canberra Trans-Galactic Spaceport…. You have gridlock as the Airport traffic merges with the traffic going to the SnowTown Business Adventure park. (More single lane goatracks here too!)

Solution… give the ACT Planning Authority a firm slap on the back of the head!

OpenYourMind4:32 am 06 Oct 10

mr_wowtrousers, you do realise that the taxi rate is Government regulated as well. It’s not some free enterprise barter scheme. Taxis in Canberra are a marginal business for most people involved. It’s terrible for the drivers and the only owners who make real money are the ones who manage a fleet really well. In a de-regulated market that situation wouldn’t change.

Does relative de-regulation of the child-care industry make the service more available or cheaper?

mr_wowtrousers said :

@Damien Hass

Sorry bud, but that probably wouldn’t turn out so well. As has been pointed out, the drivers themselves earn shit money, work long hours and have to put up with a lot of crap. You would get worse service, unsafe vehicles, unlicensed (as taxi drivers) drivers blah blah blah

Anyway, maybe you should research the taxi industry a bit more before you post. And yes, I have. Also investigated a few co-ops as well (almost as bad as local councils for rorting) but making it a free for all would see things go pear-shaped, no doubt.

How many drivers are driver/owners ? What incentive to improve service delivery exists when its seen as a low wage/high cost business ? You provide no evidence as to why making the cost of entry into the industry low, would not lead to more taxis and better service.

Creating artificial scarcity leads to increased cost – its economics 101.

Remove the impediments to entering the industry by making plates available to ANYONE who wants to own a taxi at the cost of administering the licensing system.

mr_wowtrousers11:27 pm 05 Oct 10

@Damien Hass

Sorry bud, but that probably wouldn’t turn out so well. As has been pointed out, the drivers themselves earn shit money, work long hours and have to put up with a lot of crap. You would get worse service, unsafe vehicles, unlicensed (as taxi drivers) drivers blah blah blah

Anyway, maybe you should research the taxi industry a bit more before you post. And yes, I have. Also investigated a few co-ops as well (almost as bad as local councils for rorting) but making it a free for all would see things go pear-shaped, no doubt.

_____________________________

Taxi plates should be issued to anyone who wishes to operate a Taxi. This ludicrous ’scarce resource’ problem is self-created.

The policy objective should be to ensure enough taxis are available to service all calls within a reasonable timeframe. The policy objective should not be to create a valuable resource from taxi plates, to ensure they rise in value while creating service delivery problems to taxi users.

If taxi plates were issued to allcomers, the cost of using taxis would decrease, as no revenue would be diverted to paying the loan required to buy the several hundred thousand dollar taxi plate. Taxi driver wages could increase, fares could decrease. Revenue overall would increase for the taxi owner.

More taxis, and more taxi drivers using deodorant!

OpenYourMind9:11 pm 05 Oct 10

You can have all the deregulation you like. You can bake it up into a big deregulation pie. The simple fact is that there is a chronic shortage of drivers. Deregulation of licences is sure to decrease taxi driver’s income thus making driving cabs even less attractive. The hours are long and the pay is crap. I remember when I got a job in the pubes, a fellow cab driver described it as being like ‘winning lotto’

screaming banshee8:22 pm 05 Oct 10

Surely if the taxi owners didn’t have to pay 16-20K per year for their “affiliations” income wouldn’t be as big a problem?

30january16496:33 pm 05 Oct 10

p1 says: “Farming is another example of what is usually a very small business (few employees, low average yearly profit) but in order to run such a business, you are required to own a asset worth many, many times any potential yearly profit.”

Only if you leave it to family farms which are often inefficient. We need to encourage big agri-businesses and others buy up those little farms (providing farmers with Superannuation). Big farmer can get economies of scale – and being big farmer they can be pressured into investing in sustainable agriculture (whereas you can’t beat-up on a farming family for not being good environmental stewards…it’s unAustralian!).

For users of the taxi service it’s painfully obvious that at peak times there are nowhere near enough taxis on the road in Canberra.

And for the remaining 23hrs of the day……. The wait times at the airport are nowhere near as bad as Sydney or Melbourne at peak times (in my experience).

But why are they so expensive? Effectively a $6.50 flag fall at the airport.

KB1971 said :

yep, de regulation sorted out those nasty dairy farmers too, trouble makers they were…..

Farming is another example of what is usually a very small business (few employees, low average yearly profit) but in order to run such a business, you are required to own a asset worth many, many times any potential yearly profit.

basketcase said :

Taxis should be completely deregulated, it can’t be worse for drivers that it is now.

The only government involvement should be through rego and inspection, let the market sort itself out.

Why do industry participants have to pay a fee to work, who else pays $20000 a year for the right to work? It was protectionism once. There is no need for that.

yep, de regulation sorted out those nasty dairy farmers too, trouble makers they were…..

Taxis should be completely deregulated, it can’t be worse for drivers that it is now.

The only government involvement should be through rego and inspection, let the market sort itself out.

Why do industry participants have to pay a fee to work, who else pays $20000 a year for the right to work? It was protectionism once. There is no need for that.

Taxi plates should be issued to anyone who wishes to operate a Taxi. This ludicrous ‘scarce resource’ problem is self-created.

The policy objective should be to ensure enough taxis are available to service all calls within a reasonable timeframe. The policy objective should not be to create a valuable resource from taxi plates, to ensure they rise in value while creating service delivery problems to taxi users.

If taxi plates were issued to allcomers, the cost of using taxis would decrease, as no revenue would be diverted to paying the loan required to buy the several hundred thousand dollar taxi plate. Taxi driver wages could increase, fares could decrease. Revenue overall would increase for the taxi owner.

I guess most of the drivers were more interested in earning some money, the taxi ranks were well stocked at 11am when the stop work meeting was supposed to take place.

rapunzel said :

oh boo hoo, try having to actually compete and be better than the competition like the rest of us, instead of just taking people for a ride.

Like the government?

oh boo hoo, try having to actually compete and be better than the competition like the rest of us, instead of just taking people for a ride.

I always use CabXpress when not needing a taxi at peak times – however over hte past six-ish months I’ve noticed they are taking longer and longer to arrive.

I’m guessing some of the CabXpress cabbies are going back to Can Cabs. Does anybody know if this is on the money?

Rawhide Kid Part311:16 am 05 Oct 10

What happened to all that competition we were suppose to get??

I’m all for anything that:

* could reduce the exorbitant prices (come on Canberra why the heck are we so expensive to get around in?)
* shorten time spent in the early hours at the civic interchange, hoping you don’t get sucker punched
* might actually make taxi drivers consider stopping for someone waving them down when they don’t already have a passenger
* might make taxi drivers consider being slightly more punctual

Another added benefit, if prices and waiting time drops, is that I’d…I mean…bogans would be less likely to chance driving home after ‘just a few’.

Maybe the govt could sponsor a whole load of disabled taxis, to solve the problem disabled people have in ever getting anywhere, and then during deseignated ‘peak’ times, these cabs could revert to standard cabs to take up the slack.

+1 “for the Part Time Licences™” suggestion. And there would be the advantage of additional, fully functional vehicles available in reserve for when one is out of action for some mechanical reason.

Perhaps “part-time” licences could operate at peak times when the existing “full time” licences can’t handle the work available. During these times the existing cabs would not be disadvantaged and the service overall would be more timely, efficient and conducive to building business by attracting old customers who do not utilise the service BECAUSE of long waiting times. These part time licences could be priced appropriately.

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