The most startling point to emerge from the discussion, at least from my perspective, was the fact that not a single new taxi licence is being issued as part of the exercise. The current number of 18,163 taxis is being maintained, according to Yick. All 3,500 vehicles covered by the new fleet licences will come from cannibalising existing taxi licences.
So this is not provision of additional resources. It is a reshuffle of those we already have. Taking into account also that all selected five fleet operators are players in the existing market, it is plain to see that for all the talk of a new era in taxi matters, this is largely a case of old wine in new bottles.
In a press release, the government stressed the advantages of the new licensing scheme. First, around 40 per cent of the fleet vehicles (1,500 of 3,500) will be completely new and the remainder will not be more than three years old. There will be a set number of wheelchair accessible and premium vehicles and more than a quarter will be electric.
Secondly, all operators will establish proper training programmes for their drivers and many of them will have an employer-employee relationship to hopefully provide job security and better working conditions.
Thirdly, vehicles will be fitted with modern technology such as the Global Positioning System, dashboard cameras and driver monitoring systems to improve safety.
It all sounds very worthy, though it could be argued much of the improved service is what we should be getting already (and indeed do get from Uber) or could be achieved by routine amendments to existing annual licensing conditions rather than creation of a whole new licensing regime.
I will not pretend to be an expert on how the new scheme will work. I am a potential customer, not an operator. One area the studio discussion did not quite get to the bottom of is the possibility of coordination between the different operators. Will members of the public have to keep a record of all five contact numbers? What if one operator cannot fulfil an order right now in a particular location but another could? Do we keep dialling the other numbers until someone jumps in with an offer? No doubt all these issues will get sorted out in coming weeks and explained to the community.
So that’s one up for the transport planners and I hope they have similar success with the taxi fleet licences. But if this is just a device to prolong the privileged position of vested interests and delay regularisation of Uber and similar services, then the public will not easily forgive them.
Mike Rowse is an independent commentator
