Opinion OCH BLETHERSKITE!
NationaL Private Hire Association 8 Silver Street Bury BL9 0EX 0161 280 2800
www.npha.org.uk
A view from the trade by B. M. ROLAND
npha@btconnect.com
which would effectively merge taxis and private hire”. Excuse me – have I heard this somewhere before?
All right, so all you people living south of the Border are scratching your heads and wondering what the headline means. In simple terms, it means “What a load of ......!!”
I have to say that because the very concept of controlling the number of private hire vehicles licensed in a licensing area is quite clearly some- thing that has never been considered in England and Wales; has never been considered by the Law Commission, or the House of Commons Select Committee, and certainly conflicts with the concept of market forces ruling supply and demand – or indeed the footprint of the trade.
We appreciate that there has been a large shout in England about deregulation of taxi numbers. So where on earth did Scotland come up with the proposal to limit private hire numbers? Certainly when I grew up, there always appeared to be jokes about the Scots being money- maniacal, tight fisted non-spenders or investors, and to that end, I presume that private hire in Scotland “pile it high and sell it cheap” is the market force.
So why restrict numbers? Is this so that the hackney carriages can pile it higher and dearer? But most of Scotland’s taxi fares are amongst the lowest in the country anyway. So it doesn’t appear to be anything to do with market forces.
Many councils in England have deregulated taxis on the basis of market forces; to be exact, the cost of doing unmet demand surveys. So what’s happening in Scotland? When you start reading the consultation docu- ment, although it gets clearer, I have to say, the scratching of the head gets harder, louder and more painful. What they’re saying is that there have been “long standing calls to create a single tier licensing regime
What they say in Scotland is that the logistical reality of creating a sin- gle tier would be doubling the number of vehicles able to rank and hail across Scotland. The document suggests that there are 10,600 taxis and 10,700 private hire cars in Scotland. And they say, “Although the impact will be different locally depending on the split between taxis and private hire, this could have a significant impact on the road infrastructure potentially causing increased congestion and pollution, as well as cre- ating issues for the profile of the fleet: saloon, WAVs etc.” - as well of course as mucking about with fares and meters. Oh dear – market forces again.
So what they’re doing – and disclosing as their intention – is reaching “a compromise position” which would bring the two regimes closer togeth- er, by allowing local authorities to restrict the number of private hires, and require the testing of private hire drivers. It would appear that the Knowledge is compulsory for taxi drivers, but not for private hire.
Under the new plan, every driver would have to be knowledge tested.
So what it says then is the bit which gauged grooves out of my head: “If a local authority wishes to impose a quantity restriction on taxi vehicles, their only legal justification... is to do an unmet demand survey.” They say that the process to assess unmet demand is not set out in statute, but has over time become a relatively costly and complex exercise.
“We would aim to ensure local authorities had improved guidance on conducting surveys of unmet demand, if they extend the provision to restrict numbers of private hire cars using the same grounds.”
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PHTM JANUARY 2013
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