London Cab drivers still the best

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New York taxis are world’s 2nd best, but London ranked number 1 according to a ‘Hotels.com’ survey.

In the recent Hotels.com survey New York City was given a No. 2 ranking among the world’s best taxis. 1,600 participants were polled across 28 countries and London taxis were found to be the best of the best, with the top five filled out by New York (2), Tokyo (3), Shanghai (4) and Bangkok (5). Of the seven categories people voted on, NYC did beat all others for Best Availability. London, however, took top honors for Cleanliness, Knowledge of the Area and Friendliness. American participants were also questioned about the most unusual item they had left in a cab. Responses included a blowup doll

New Taxi Inspection Centres Adresses

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From March 1st 2013 the new taxi inspection regime comes into force. The new taxi licensing regime will require all vehicle owners to ensure their vehicles have passed two standard (class 4) MOT’s per year. You will be required to have an MOT which will be no more than 14 days old at the time of licensing. The only exception will be for new taxi vehicles which are exempt from the requirement to carry out an MOT for the first 12 months from the date of first registration. A new taxi inspection manual has been published and can be obtained from TfL.

 

NSL INSPECTION CENTRES

Heston:                      20A Airlinks Industrial Estate, Spitfire Way, Heston TW5 9NR

Enfield:                      Unit 2, Watermill Centre, Edison Road, Enfield EN3 7XF

Crayford:                    Unit 01, Acorn Business Park, Crayford, Kent DA1 4AL

Coulsdon:                 Unit B5 Redlands, Ullswater Crescent, Coulsdon, CR5 2HT

Canning Town:        1 North Crescent, Canning Town, E16 4TL

Staples Corner:        Unit 2 Aquarius, Staples Corner, Priestly Way, NW2 7AN

For further information contact TfL

Courtesy of TaxiCabnews

Unlicensed touting Minicab driver jailed

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A touting minicab driver has been jailed for raping a woman he picked up from a west end street. Mohamed Hacene-Chaouch, aged 46 from Catford, was sentenced to seven years and three months imprisonment at the Old Bailey after being found guilty of rape.

The judge also issued him with a sexual offences prevention order which prevents Hacene-Chaouch from working as a private hire or taxi driver for hire or reward; he must also sign the sex offenders register for life. He picked up his 24-year-old victim in the early hours of 27 January 2013. She had been enjoying a night out with friends in Soho, but became separated from her friends at just after midnight and hailed a minicab in Charing Cross Road. 

Hacene-Chaouch, an unlicenced minicab driver who was touting that night, picked her up. After she withdrew cash to pay for her journey, she drifted in and out of sleep in the car. When the car arrived at her home address in Hackney, the woman woke up to discover she was being sexually assaulted by Hacene-Chaouch. She managed to get out the car and go home where she later told her friend. Police were contacted the following day and statements taken from the victim. 

Police officers used CCTV footage from the petrol station near Shoreditch, where the victim stopped to withdraw money out of ATM, to trace the car. The footage showed the registration number of Hacene-Chaouch’s car, which police traced, leading to his arrest and subsequent charge. 

 

Law Commission Consultation publishing date extended

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The LAW COMMISSION CONSULTATION ON TAXI AND PRIVATE HIRE SERVICES consultation closed on 10 September 2012; earlier this year the Law Commission published an interim statement and the project had a deadline of December 2013. This deadline has now been extended for what is said to be administrative reasons and the report, together with the draft Bill, will now not be published until the end of April 2014.

TaxiCabNews

Transgender Taxi driver closes in on mission to Mars

Transgender Taxi driver one step closer to Mars voyage

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A transgender taxi driver from Hull is one step closer to relocating on Mars, after being shortlisted for a reality TV programme which will chart the preparations for a permanent move to space.

Melissa Ede made it through to the final 705 candidates for the Mars One project, which plans to build the first human colony on Mars in 11 in years time. More than 200,000 from about 140 countries applied. The winners will get seven years of specialist training which will be filmed for a reality show by the makers of Big Brother. Transgender Melissa (pictured centre) says she would use the experience to promote diversity.

Transgender Taxi driver closes in on mission to Mars

Founders’ Day Charity Luncheon

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On 21st June, in the magnificent surroundings of Trinity House, Trinity Square, The Worshipful Company of Hackney Carriage Drivers held their Founders’ Day celebration lunch. Master of WCHCD, Brenda Bartlett, together with her Wardens greeted guests to this superb hall, to enjoy a champagne reception before the lunch. The principal guest and speaker was Camila Batmangheldijh, CBE founder and director of Kids Company and an advocate for vulnerable children.

Camila is an inspirational charity leader who spoke of the work her charity carries out and the difficulties faced by those using the service.  The Founders’ Day is celebrated to commemorate the original Fellowship of the WCHCD, set up in 1654, but then disbanded by Oliver Cromwell three years later.  However, by an act of Parliament in 1694 the first Hackney Carriages were licensed, so now the taxi trade celebrates 319 years of continuous licensing. The WCHCD have combined this celebration with the opportunity to raise funds for their Charitable Trust during the past few years.

This fund helps support those drivers who face financial difficulties due to long term illness or their families at a time of bereavement. It was with delight that Master Brenda Bartlett announced at the lunch that The Company had been granted a Royal Charter. Since the Middle Ages, tradesmen who have acted as suppliers of goods and services to the Sovereign have received formal recognition. In the beginning, this patronage took the form of Royal Charters given collectively to various guilds in trades and crafts which later became known as livery companies.

Brenda said: “This is the last of my official lunches for the WCHCD as in September our new Master Elect, Graham Woodhouse, will be installed. It is therefore with great pleasure that I am able to announce that the Privy Council has informed our Company that we are to be granted a Royal Charter by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.” The news was greeted with delight by all those present, particularly the Liverymen and Freemen of the Company.  The Founders’ Day celebration lunch was sponsored by Proximo Ltd and Com Cab, for which the WCHCD is grateful.

 Taxicabnews

Taxis as Ambulances

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Owner of Allied Vehicles and Cab Direct, Gerry Facenna is campaigning for a £1 million scheme to use taxis as ambulances in a bid to cut high death rates among Scottish heart-attack victims. Gerry Facenna wants to equip 1000 Scottish cabs serving the Glasgow and Edinburgh areas with defibrillators.

Glasgow is home to the factory which produces the E7 taxis, amongst many other vehicles.  Gerry has reportedly approached Health Secretary Alex Neil and a meeting has been organised with the Scottish Ambulance Service. He said: “I believe we can save thousands of lives with this initiative. I got a real warm reception from Alex Neil on it. Scottish Ambulance seemed pretty excited about it all. They’ve just got to put a whole proposal together because it’s going to cost around £1m to fund these defibrillators.

We’re prepared to put the Cardio Cabs name in the participating taxis and help them get the whole thing off the ground, and tie the taxi companies up with the Scottish Ambulance Service and the Scottish Government.” Last year, a family friend, Craig Hodgkinson, 24, died of heart problems while playing rugby. Gerry Facenna consequently bought six defibrillators to install in his manufacturing facility where around 400 people work.  

 

Unlicensed Minicabs targeted in Operation Condor

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The fifth major London-wide crackdown by the Metropolitan Police Service on crimes relating to licensing issues has resulted in 420 arrests and the seizure of thousands of pounds worth of contraband and counterfeit goods. Over the weekend of Friday 13th – Sunday 15th September Operation Condor saw officers from Territorial Policing join forces with specialist officers and partners to carry out 942 separate activities targeting offences, including unlicensed minicabs.

Other areas targeted were licence breaches by venues and the selling of knives, alcohol and cigarettes to under-age customers, tax avoidance and immigration fraud. Around 3,793 officers were deployed during the course of the initiative, carrying out operations ranging from sex worker card patrols and brothel visits; targeting of unlicensed mini cabs and taxi touts; enforcement of no drinking zones and spot checks carried out at bars, pubs and nightclubs.

By the end of the operation a total of 3,740 licensed premises had been visited, of which almost 806 were subjected to a full licensing inspection – entailing officers demanding the immediate production of all relevant documents. Arrests were made for a range of offences including drugs; attempted rape; immigration, public order; burglary; robbery; assault; weapons and assault. Quantities of Class A and B drugs, thousands of pounds in cash and weapons including a BB gun; knife and bullets were recovered and more than 34,500 contraband cigarettes were seized from premises across the capital, along with hundreds of bottles of wine; beer and spirits.

Commander Mak Chishty, lead for the operation, said: “This is our fifth Operation Condor to date and yet again we have witnessed a raft of excellent results, obtained by our concerted efforts involving thousands of officers being deployed all over London over a 48 hour period, together with the support provided by our key partners in other agencies. “Licensing related crime affects many of our daily activities – from shops and supermarkets who sell knives or alcohol to young people and pubs and clubs who increase the risk of anti-social behaviour and violence by not ensuring alcohol is sold responsibly or drugs excluded, to those road users who put us all at risk by driving unlicensed, unsafe vehicles. These are just some of the areas that impact our communities we have repeatedly targeted under Operation Condors to date and we will continue to commit resources to these problems in order to reduce crime and increase public confidence.”

TaxiCabNews

RMT The Knowledge

RMT – The Knowledge

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The esteemed right to ply for hire in London can only be achieved by completing the Knowledge of London, which was started in 1884 and continues to the present day.

This fact was highlighted and reinforced in TfL`s Law Commission response (TPH 1080 p.4) which states “London’s taxi service is widely recognised as the best in the world. The world renowned Knowledge of London that must be demonstrated before a taxi driver is licensed to ply for hire, means that these drivers have an unparalleled understanding of London’s streets and points of interest, as well as pride in their profession”.

RMT The Knowledge

PUBLICLY HIRED V PRE-BOOKING
Plying for hire allows a taxi to be publicly hired the significance of this was further clarified by the Maxwell Stamp report (1970) which stated… “The entitlement to ply for hire being for the most part safeguards against the possible abuses of the travelling public by taxi drivers and of taxi drivers by their passengers that are inherent in a situation where it is reckoned that any member of the public, however defenceless should be able to pick up any one of a large fleet of identical vehicles in the street to take him or her to the destination of his or her choice without being harmed, lost or cheated in the process.

The reason for the distinction between the two types of vehicle is that taxis are allowed to ply for hire and private hire cars are not and it has always been held that a degree of control is necessary in the interests of the travelling public, when the vehicle can be hailed in the street which does not hold for vehicles that have to be ordered in advance. More recent analysis and comparison of this was explored in an article by Rory Sutherland of The Spectator 20th July 2013 where he states… “Now, useful as it once was, many people feel the Knowledge has been made superfluous by the arrival of cheap satellite navigation devices. I thought this. Conventional economic thinking, obsessed with ‘market efficiency’, would argue that the Knowledge is a ‘barrier to entry’ erected to maintain the scarcity of cab drivers, rather like a medieval guild. But as some people have begun to realise, markets need trust before they can be efficient. Medieval guilds existed for this reason. Trust is always more difficult in cities because of the anonymity they afford. Guilds offset this problem.

If it is costly and time consuming to join a guild, the only people who enter a trade are those with a serious commitment to a craft. And guilds are self-policing; the up-front cost of being admitted adds to the fear of being ejected. Could you really trust cabbies as you do now if they had gained their licences through attending three or four evening classes and shelling out for a second-hand TomTom? Reciprocation, reputation and pre-commitment are the three big mechanisms which add to trust. You can use a small local firm which needs your loyalty. You can use someone larger with a brand reputation. Or you can trust someone who has made a big investment in getting a badge, and stands to lose everything if caught cheating”.

While no system can claim to be perfect, figures released by TfL in the “Where to Guv” report 2005 for the period 2000 – 2005 showed an average of 1034 complaints against taxi drivers were received per year. However it is estimated that London taxis complete 75 million hirings per year. This clearly demonstrates Mr Sutherland`s analysis of why the knowledge is fundamental for passenger trust.

THE KNOWLEDGE A SAFETY ISSUE
Trust is also about safety as highlighted in Mr Ellis’s response (TPH 0384) where he states: “A driver who is lost can inadvertently take a passenger into danger and can also be taken into danger by passengers… Uncertainty regarding a route reduces the driver’s ability to drive safely, especially if searching for directional signs or road names….In responding to street hails a taxi driver does not have the luxury of time to input a destination and wait for a sat nav to calculate the route but needs to move off quickly in the right direction to avoid hindering other traffic, causing an obstruction or creating danger.” Of the 343 Licensing Authorities about 60 per cent of them test taxi drivers on their local geographical knowledge. Only in London and Northampton does the estimated average time to acquire a level of geographical knowledge take more than 12 months.

The All London Knowledge testing currently takes an average of 44 months to complete. However in 2007 the London Chamber of commerce report on the London Taxi trade asked over 120 company directors: “Would you be willing to accept any of the following if it meant there were more taxis on the streets – A less stringent “Knowledge” requirement for drivers?” 83% answered No. By not defining plying for hire and repealing the term will devalue the KoL. Why spend a number of years completing the Knowledge to gain an entitlement that has been repealed along with valuable underpinning case law.

We (RMT) therefore take the view that plying for hire and the knowledge are synonymous with London, and are intrinsically linked. Devalue one you devalue the other. By defining plying for hire will not only reinforce our rights and privileges but also assure Londoners that the future of their taxi trade will remain safe to use and of the highest standard.
London – Safe in the Knowledge since 1884 let it remain so!

The Knowledge – A London Thing Since 1884.

TaxiCabNews

 

Allied have their eye on London

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Paul Nelson is managing director of Allied Vehicles, who manufacture the E7 taxi in Glasgow, trading as Cab Direct. In a recent article in a Scottish newspaper he revealed that Cab direct once again have their eye on getting their taxi licensed in London. The main reason that the E7 is not allowed to ply for hire in the capital is that it fails to meet the 25 feet turning circle requirement of the Conditions of Fitness. Mr. Nelson said: “We are in the early stages of instructing lawyers to take London to court if our vehicles are not allowed on its streets. Our message to Boris Johnson is that Allied are coming. We will get our vehicles on to the streets of London, hopefully with his blessing.”

He said: “refusing to allow the E7 taxis may be a breach of European competition rules”. During the past few years, there have been several challenges to licensing regulations in various cities around the UK where the E7 was subsequently licensed. In 2009, Allied won a landmark ruling after challenging Liverpool city council’s decision not to allow the E7 to operate. Lawyers argued the decision contradicted free trade laws by restricting the Peugeots’ use and sale. The High Court ordered the council to reconsider licensing the Peugeots for taxi use. E7 taxis are licensed in other cities including Edinburgh, Newcastle and Manchester. Allied’s co-founder and chairman, Gerry Facenna, reportedly met with TfL officials recently to ask them once again to lift the ban. Mr. Nelson told reporters: “We have spent a lot of time and effort on building a product. What we are up against is a Chinese company producing the London black cab to a 60-year-old design while we are a good UK company working for the best solution for the customer. “London wants to keep its own black cabs. The problem is clearly that we are not part of the establishment.” Helen Chapman, TfL’s taxi general manager, said: “Currently there are two taxi manufacturers, the London Taxi Company and Mercedes Vitos adapted by One80 Ltd, which have a variety of vehicle models that are licensed. Some older models of taxis from other manufacturers, which meet the Conditions of Fitness and are approved for use in London, are the Metrocab and Asquith taxi models. “TfL is also aware of, and working closely with, a number of other vehicle manufacturers that are developing new zero emission capable taxis which will also fully meet the Conditions of Fitness.”

CoF REVIEW
Back in 2005, it was the Public Carriage Office who issued the results of the Conditions of Fitness review for London’s taxi industry. Three aspects had been challenged by Allied Vehicles Limited; the turning-circle requirement; the requirement that sliding doors are power assisted and the requirement for a one-piece rear window.  At that time, the Review decided to retain the turning-circle requirement, not require sliding doors, if fitted, to be power-assisted and introduce a new condition to address the issue of visibility into and out of taxis for the benefit of passengers and drivers. Roy Ellis, then the Head of the PCO, said: “After a comprehensive review, it was found that the tight turning-circle produced tangible significant benefits to the travelling public, and that these outweighed the advantages of removing it. Allied Vehicles alleged that the retention of the turning-circle requirement led to fewer taxis, higher fares, less suitable taxis for the needs of the disabled and the unavailability of safer and more comfortable taxis, to the disadvantage in general of passengers and drivers alike. The facts of these alleged dis-benefits were not borne out by the research undertaken. “Approximately 50m U-turns and over 90m other tight turns are performed by London taxis each year. If these U-turns were replaced by multi-point turns and other alternative complex manoeuvres, this could cause delay and impede other road users. “Overall, during this review, both passengers and drivers preferred the existing London Taxi.”

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