Alannah MacTiernan the minister responsible for all things cab related has announced she will be releasing 20 taxis a month each month for the next year in an effort to reduce waiting times at peak demand times.
Does this mean they will be peak period plates ?? That would be preferable from my point of view. If they are going to be full time then I worry about our incomes as weeknights are far quieter than weekend.
She claims the ratio of 1 cab to 1111 persons in Perth is the highest of all the Australian states. Whats that got to do with the price of tea in China? No one I know outside of my job catches cabs. Plenty of people I meet in my job only get 1 or 2 cabs a year. Others are catching cabs several times a day. Maybe our ratio needs to be different based on the way people catch cabs in Perth. A comment on my blog over on blogspot mentions 14,000 cabs for 2 million people where the commenter lives we have 1,500 for 1.5 million maybe the cab prices are more affordable there hence higher instance of taxi travel. He doesn’t mention if the drivers are making enough to live on which I think is the major concern of all cabbies.
The story from TheWest is here
9 comments:
Giday mate.Happy St.Patricks day I believe yours is on the 11th.
I think you can find out the figures in a posting at the beginning of my blog.Our incomes have fallen dramatically. You can only pick up so many people in a given hour,one fair out to the subburbs might easily take you 1 hour all round.
The problem is that the pubs close at the same time so the pissed and aggressive drug fueled hoardes decend on the ranks together.
The drivers with brains will not go near them anyhow.
As incomes have dropped the quality of driver has taken a tumble.
You won't be able to change your car or service it as often either.
Jo public has no sympathy they cannot see 350 taxis stuck in traffic going out to the airport all they know is that they can't get one now.
Like colombo I just had to come back again. have a look at www.taxiregulator.ie
and www.taxi.ie
to get an impression of what may be about to hit you
"They" don't get it. Adding more cabs does not help anyone but the owners of the taxi companies and the city collecting money for permits etc. It gives each driver a smaller slice of the pie. The taxi customer will most likely not see a difference, because cabs will still park at the same taxi stands or hotels. In the old days cabs might cruise the outer areas, but with the price of gas I not driving around looking.
I know up in San Francisco they just added cabs.
John thanks our St Pats is on the 17th don't ask me why and I've just checked that means I'm not working it (I don't do Fri/Say anymore). Can't say I'll mind last year I heard more Irish jokes from Irishmen than I heard from anyone the whole year long lol.
Yeah I scoured your blog and saw the figures there.
My point exactly I've asked everyone who's wanted to talk about the taxi crisis the same question "If you had the choice between a job on the radio or driving back to the rank to a crowd of 300 drunken people what would you do?" and they've all answered the same "Take the radio job"
1 lady's answer was to flood the market with so many cabs we would be forced to take anything we could get as it would be impossible to pick and choose.
Joann thanks for stopping by. I can't comment on your situation as I don't know the price of fuel or your taxi fares but here in Perth we are paying up to 62.9c p/ltr for Gas (lpg) and we get $1.35p/km plus flag and call out etc($4.80 $1.50). I know of drivers who restrict their driving and claim to be making enough but I still drive however much I need to looking for a dollar. 62c might not look like allot but just 4 yrs ago it was 24c p/ltr so it's gone up a fair bit.
I just finished a 12 hour night shift and drove 450km for the night and used $41.80 worth of gas but the way I look at it is sure it's a big chunk of money but if I hadn't driven as far I wouldn't have made the money I did.
We have cabs parking up at our international airport up to 3 hours before a flight is meant to land and tonight a pax told me it took her 1.5hrs to get thru customs etc. thats 4.5 hrs some of those cabs would have sat there. But you never hear the government mention a solution to getting those cabs back on the road. We've got enough cabs they just don't work.
Sorry to come back AGAIN but.
I went out today to ccllect my new driver ID. The sign said please be patient there are in excess of 17.000 taxi driving permits to be processed in Dublin.
One driver remarked to the cabby who was bringing him home that his picture was nothing like him, to which the black guy replied. Its the oil of ulay I has been usin.
It was not his picture on the permit.
I never saw a taxi regulator enforcement officer.
Are you still driving? Haven't been any posts in two months.
Yeah still driving. I posted here a while back that I had stopped updating this blog in favour of one over on the wordpress server. I've also put a message at the top of the side bar here to let people know of the move.
Wordpress just gets better traffic than blogger and I didn't really want to run 2 blogs. The addy is http://bytesfromthebackseat.wordpress.com/
Thanks for stopping by.
Aloha,
When you find a moment, would you please update your link to me. The URL has changed.
Mahalo
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