Taxis - Black Cabs, Uber, Illegal Cabbies

I wish it were so simple. :)

fighting for their rights to pollute Tooley St?

What taxi drivers are seeing are increasing numbers of traffic projects in which 'quasi-one-way systems' are being introduced--that is, streets which are made one-way for private motor traffic and two way for other modes, such as buses and pedal cycles, without a corresponding alignment in the other direction. Tavistock Place, in protesting against which they achieved at best a partial victory, is one example. That route is one of the most important taxi routes in London (for picking people up at King's Cross/St Pancras and taking them to hotels in Paddington without being stuck on the A501 Inner Ring Road, to put it crudely), and Tooley Street is another. To them, the damage is simply economic damage to their profession. The service they provide is dependent on being hired on the street, i.e. at taxi ranks, which are in particular locations, and having to do huge detours every time they leave from there or return there is a serious threat for them.

They're obviously not fighting for the right to pollute anywhere--it's very likely that London's black cab fleet will be one of the first to be largely or fully electrified (which I realise only shifts pollution and would 'greenwash' driving, which would in turn probably cause more driving). Already, many cabs run on alternative fuels, not because they're better for the environment, but because they're cheaper, and cabbies have seen their earnings fall for years (with the usual exceptions).

Already, many cabs run on alternative fuels, not because they're better for the environment, but because they're cheaper

Citation needed.

Those new electric cabs are like £50k. Do you have any numbers of fuel costs for cabbies?

https://www.insuretaxi.com/2016/08/taxi-driver-survey-2016/

Looks like £95 a week so let's say 48 weeks and even if fuel is 5x the cost of driving an average Tesla, that's a £17,800 saving in five years.

What is the cost of the old cab vs. the new cab though?
If there's an 18k price difference that's still 5 years before it's paid itself off.
If the price difference is more than that (I assumed it was but I don't know) then it could be 10yrs before it has paid for the difference and then what state are the batteries in?

https://www.parkers.co.uk/cars/prices/new/lti/tx4/saloon-2006/

£31.2k plays £55.6k, so about 6.5 years payback, but lets just ignore Uber buying 24,000 autonomous Volvos... No wonder all those Gammons with the knowledge are raging!

Uber could be ruled out of London though. What ever happened with that licensing thing a year ago? Were they fined? banned?

ah, thanks for your informed reply. The brief report I'd read said

"protest at plans to improve safety and reduce harmful emissions by Transport for London who are proposing to restrict any vehicles other than buses and bicycles from nearby Tooley Street."

but as you point out there's clearly more to it than that. I'm not anti black cab at all but just think it would be great if cabby organisations could became more part of a solution to the state of London traffic and air, rather than often being found protesting for the status quo.

there's an interesting piece about the electric cabs here (although it reads like an advertorial at times):

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/levc-geely-london-electric-black-taxis-cabs

Uber could be ruled out of London though. What ever happened with that licensing thing a year ago? Were they fined? banned?

Ordered to pay TfL's £425k legal costs. Operating License reissued but they're on probation for 15 months (from June 2018) with a list of shit they need to sort out.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44612837

Murky work afoot:

http://newingtoncomms.co.uk/statement-newington-communications

It has come to our attention that there is a lack of clarity and
transparency on the funding of a campaign for which one of our
associates has been providing counsel. As a proud founding member of
the newly unified voice of the industry, the PRCA Public Affairs
Board, we abide by the Public Affairs Code and declare all our clients
on the Public Affairs Register. As a matter of principle, where we are
made aware of a potential breach of the Code, we take this extremely
seriously. We have notified the Public Affairs Board that there may
have been a breach of the Code and that we are undertaking an internal
investigation as a matter of urgency to understand the facts. Once we
have the full facts we will make a further statement outlining any
actions we will be taking.

Admit to lack of transparency with a statement that Sir Humphrey could have written. Nice.

Ostensibly it was LTDA who opposed the Embankment cycle lane in their TFL meeting.

In reality it was Canary Wharf Group:

Seriously?? Canary Wharf Group threatened Deloitte it would lose
business because Deloitte supports safe cycling for its employees? The
folk at Canary Wharf Group increasingly show themselves to be a truly
nasty bunch of yesterday’s men (they are all men from what I’ve seen)

https://twitter.com/citycyclists/status/1068828959394148353

http://cyclelondoncity.blogspot.com/2015/02/make-no-mistake-it-is-not-taxis-or.html

LPG. This started in Birmingham and has recently begun in London:

https://gazeo.com/up-to-date/news/2017/LPG-black-cabs-unleashed-in-London,article,9906.html

This is a Birmingham company that does conversions:

https://autogaslimited.co.uk/taxi-drivers

Obviously, the cost ...

The repowering will cost £10400

... can seem prohibitive, too, but the fuel is apparently cheaper.

The main problem is that there are still very few 'filling stations' that do LPG.

I also haven't been following how far the London offshoot of the scheme has got, but it was widely expected to get a good take-up.

I think many cabbies will opt for this instead of buying a new electric taxi. Obviously, there are still very few charging stations for electric cars/cabs in London. However, I still think that the London taxi fleet will be electrified earlier than others.

(I'm not too optimistic that widespread electric car use won't lead to a further increase in driving, by the way.)

I think the Tooley Street plan is nonsense, because Tooley Street is a very important main street, and if you restrict through motor traffic from one direction of main streets you cause all sorts of knock-on problems. It takes a while to explain that, though.

The Wikipedia article on LPG says that

According to the LPG trade association [39] in the UK there are about 1500 refuelling stations that cater for the 160,000 LPG powered vehicles on UK roads. This represents less than 1% of vehicles. The only Government incentive to use LPG is the lower road fuel tax applied to LPG compared to petrol. As of January 2012, the saving of about 60 pence per litre is the highest it has ever been and that combined with conversion prices being an historic low should result in an increase in LPG conversions. Technology has reached the point where almost all conversions are 'Sequential Vapour Injection', and in the UK there is a large number of kits [40][better source needed] with various price and quality ranges to choose from, resulting in a very competitive market.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autogas#United_Kingdom

References in the article, obviously.

CoL police not as patient as the Met tonight:

For @Quincy 's benefit:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/black-taxi-drivers-in-mass-protest-over-traffic-ban-at-bank-junction-a4007291.html

:)

Angry drivers brought the busy junction to a standstill on Monday

No change there then, lol mighty satires.

You have to respect the right of journalists to use the same formulation over and over again regardless of circumstances. 'Standstill' belongs in pretty much every article on traffic. :)

That said, I'm really disappointed not to see a mention of 'gridlock' on the surrounding streets.

So the cabbies have lost their case against Uber. So are we expecting another bridge-blocking protest some time soon?

If you count Jolyon Maugham's case yesterday, Uber are 2 for 0 in 2 days. Not that that's a good thing.

Legal action by United Cabbies Group, seeking a review of Uber’s
London licence on the basis the chief magistrate Emma Arbuthnot who
granted it was “biased”, has been comprehensively rejected by the High
Court. Key section of judgement below:

https://twitter.com/RossLydall/status/1100431676054929409

This is an interesting one--it has for some years been a key part of large car companies' future strategies to corner the market in 'app'-controlled taxi/ride share services. Basically, the idea is that over the long term, individual consumers would no longer buy cars but constantly pay for the use of car manufacturer-owned cars. The profitability of this is obviously, as in the case of Uber, pivoted on getting rid of drivers at some point, and on undermining public transport to such an extent that public transport services would be scaled back to be gradually replaced by these private, semi-individual services. Unsurprisingly, I think that's a terrible idea and I hope it won't work and/or be legislated against robustly.

I didn't realise VW already had a trial of this in the shape of 'Moia' (probably another one of those ridiculous names that 'name invention' companies come up with for car manufacturers all the time now that traditional groups of names like the major winds have been exhausted) in Hamburg. The administrative court in Hamburg has now ordered it to reduce its fleet there from 500 to 200 vans. Needless to say, Moia is appealing against this, so the current state seems temporary; it seems as if it might be one of those cases that could go all the way to the highest administrative court in Germany.

https://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/moia-hamburg-shuttledienst-vw-bus-1.4420652

Obviously, they want to expand to other German cities, although in Berlin they didn't even get a licence to operate in the first place, as there was 'no need'.

(I imagine that the reason why this hasn't happened in the UK yet is not only because of the current dominance of Uber (i.e., American influence), but also because there are no major car manufacturers in the UK apart from some factories for foreign-owned companies.)

i've only read a translated version of the article but it looks like what moia is doing is similar to the citymapper smartbus service?

it seems they licenses for 500 drivers in london (fairly old article though)

also seems citymapper are introducing an unlimited underground/overground/bus travel pass which contributes to journeys on the smartbus service whilst undercutting TFL's travelcard.

CSB: I got a 'smartbus' home from hospital in hackney recently and it was quite handy for getting me home when buses / trains meant doing a couple of changes and/or lots of walking (that I couldn't manage). It felt like a strange combination of an uber pool and getting an actual bus - except there were laminated cards on each seat telling you not to talk to anyone else.

Related
https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/10/ford-ceo-says-the-company-overestimated-self-driving-cars/