REFLECTIONS OF AN 30 YEARS PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
Congratulations to PHTM on their 30-year birthday – well done! The birthday celebration has tempted me to look at some highlights and lowlights of the last thirty years in this industry and to consider what the next thirty years may hold.
MILLENNIUM LOOMS
At the end of the last century we, certainly the cab company I worked for, were booming. Y2K was both feared and revered as it had provided many years of lucrative corporate account users taking cabs hither and yon as everyone needed to replace their computers and prepare for a potential Armageddon. Consultancies, law firms, IT firms and banks could not get enough cabs. The London private hire industry was not yet licensed and it seemed as we moved into the 2,000s as though the party would last forever - then bang!
I remember clearly the 30/35% year on year growth that had become so predictable and reliable suddenly juddered, not only to a halt as the New Year bells chimed out, but went into a huge reversal.
BANG CRASH - DISRUPTION
Managing a 60% swing over two quarters certainly tested the mettle. Unknown to any of us then, this was only the first of many shocks to hit the industry in the early 2000s. The financial crash of 2007/2008 had its impact and then just as things had once again picked up as the Olympics was being made ready, the real seismic shock arrived from across the Atlantic with the advent of a new concept……ride hailing.
Squashed between the end of the 1900s and the arrival of ride hailing, was of course London licensing, which was phased in over a five-year transition period bathed in much fanfare setting out the improved public safety private hire licensing afforded the industry.
I, like many people, believed that we lived in a democracy where the rule of law was paramount and regulation was there to be complied with. How naive, as we were to find out and even now, thanks to Panorama, we are still discovering the true depths of what was essentially a national disgrace as Downing
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Street, City Hall and some licensing authorities fell hook, line and sinker for our new American friends (sic).
Myself, and many decent people who ran, owned or were part of management teams of private hire companies that followed the rules were hung out to dry by our own government and authorities. We were treated as dinosaurs, fuddy duddys and general nuisances whilst the new kids on the block were regaled and courted as people who had reinvented business and allowed to do whatever they wanted unhindered by that old fashioned concept of law and regulation, not to mention public safety all of which had been lauded just a few short years before.
This of course was accompanied by unprecedented flows of venture capital money subsidising rides at levels unseen before – it was the emperor’s new clothes. But of course, it led, unsustainably to a near doubling of private hire drivers in London and the ridiculous situation where the golden boys were enticing passengers off public transport and into subsidised private hire whilst blocking up London’s roads.
Thankfully the kitchen got too hot, those with dirty hands and those who temporarily lost their sight (or should that be oversight?) were shown the door and regulation and legislation actually began to mean something once again.
WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS
So here we are today, with growing ad hoc regulatory changes heaped on top of other ad hoc changes. More trade shows than you can shake a stick at, an industry that does not know what it wants or where it wants to go and a deafening sound of gnashing teeth and anger. Every operator seems to complain of a lack of drivers and overwhelming demand and a third parent is urgently sought.
So that’s the past and the now, so where do we go to from here? I honestly believe that the next decade will be spent unbundling the past decade. Private hire numbers will gradually return to pre-Uber numbers if not lower. No, Uber won’t disappear - it will, I believe revert to being an aggregator al la UberLocal.
SEPTEMBER 2022 PHTM
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