There are 2 types of taxi trade and drivers. Private Hire and Hackney. When I say taxi hereafter it will mean either unless I say otherwise. They are both licensed by the local authority and are subject to the rules of that authority. The principal differences will be the same throughout the country and this will be the method of working. The minor differences will vary from authority to authority. These will normally be the age, condition and appearance of both the driver and their car.
The Private Hire trade is only allowed to pick up a pre-booked fare. This is done by a telephone or online booking. Or depending where the firm is located, by walking into the taxi operators office which is known as a door job. The Hackney trade is allowed to pick up off the street by being flagged down. The Hackney’s are also allowed to work council designated ranks. It is an offence for an ordinary motorist to be on a hackney rank during its hours of operation.
More often than not most authorities will have the same conditions of work for both groups. Such as DBS, medical standard, drug screening, age and condition of the vehicle etc.. London is a notable example of how different the standard can be between private hire and hackneys. This being the famous knowledge test and the London black cab.
In terms of fitness to drive both of them will have to pass a DVLA Group 2 medical examination. This should be done by their own doctor and will determine that they are not epileptic, diabetic or have any psychiatric problems. Heart and associated blood flow is good, brain and central nervous system is also in good order. This is done on a regular basis depending on the authority and what the doctor says.
Drivers are also assessed in terms of character. This is done by providing 2 reference’s and a DBS check. After all, you wouldn’t want a convicted burglar driving you to the airport for your holiday. If the driver is from overseas and has lived some or all of their adult life outside the UK they will need to provide a Certificate of Good Conduct. This will be obtained from their relevant embassy.
Local Authorities will also normally stipulate standards of dress and behaviour and conduct and where possible seek to enforce this. This might be no shorts or vests to be worn when working. In addition the firms may also have a dress code. Most local authorities will have an in-service licence for the drivers for which they may pick up points. An example of this might be getting points for over rankings which is more cabs on a taxi rank than the rank is designated for.
There will be an exam covering local knowledge and some licensing regulations. This will differ between authorities. Then there will be a test of driving ability. This is now done by Diamond and The Blue Lamp Trust. The DVSA has dropped out of taxi testing in order to try too deal with the waiting list for ordinary tests. It is worth noting that most taxi tests will be for a manual transmission as most taxis are manual. This is due to cheaper purchasing and maintenance costs.
There are 3 licences associated with the taxi trade. All of these licences have a fee payable to the local authority that issues them. The first is the individual drivers licence covered above. The next one is the individual vehicle licence. The last one being an operators licence granted to individual firms.
To put a vehicle on the road as a taxi or private hire car it will be what is known as plated. The plate is that vehicle’s licence to be worked as a taxi and these are numbered. In addition to the normal legal requirements most authorities will require a separate vehicle check over and above the MOT standard. Proof of a Hire and Reward insurance policy will be required. A meter if fitted will be subject to test for accuracy and signs of tampering.
The appearance and condition of the car is also set to a minimum standard. Local authority enforcement officers will sometimes remove a plate from an unacceptable vehicle. This thereby stops the driver from working till the problem is proved to be rectified by inspection. Signage, car colour, how the numbering is displayed and the age of the vehicle can all be set by the local authority and vary between them.
The third licence is the operators licence. This allows a firm to operate a taxi service. Any booking must be recorded. Time and place of pickup along with the destination. This is available to the police by suitable application. The recording of the destination has allowed firms to become more efficient by becoming better at allocating closer drivers.
Local authorities will normally administer the taxi trade through their Licencing Office. An exception to this will be London which deals with this through Transport For London. The licensing office will administer the trade according to what the demands of the various stakeholders are.
At the head of the stakeholders table will be national government and the law and advice that passes down from them. Next will be the local authority as represented by the licensing or transport committee. Other parts of the council will make demands on the licensing office. This may be large events that need temporary taxi ranks, or planning proposals that need permanent change. In addition there will be the taxi operators, the drivers, the public, the police and other transport groups.
The local authority will be responsible for administering the various licences to do with the trade. As well as listening to all the above groups they will also be advising them. A large part of their time will be spent dealing with the various complaints. A side effect of making the trade more uniform and professional is identifying who might be causing a problem. The same way every coin has 2 sides so does every complaint. The enforcement officers will be well used to people in their richness and diversity.
Over a period of time the trade has evolved from a series of small firms serving their local area to giants with 1000’s of cars. These small firms would have had an office on a road with a lot of door trade or easy access to lots of people like a main train station. Quite often a group of hackney drivers would band together to form a company. Or if you were a private hire driver operating a number of cars you could set up on your own. An office along with some cars and drivers and you were in business.
For a good number of years the meter started when the car left the office. The driver would do the job and return to the office. The method of communication was the telephone. Even the police would have to use a fixed phone box to call in on their beats. As radio communications became more available second hand radios started filtering down to the taxi trade.
In the office you would have an operator taking phone calls and giving out work. If a job was phoned in and lets say it was north. They would call on the radio for a car north. If no car on the road was north, it would then be sent from the office. In the office the work would be given out in turn. This was done with a rail on which there was a series of pegs corresponding to individual drivers. The person at the front would normally be given the job and thereby move to the back of the rail to start all over again.
When it got busy most of the drivers would be on the road and the radio would come into play more. The operator would call a location out and the driver would reply either loaded or free for that destination if he wanted the job. Obviously the driver would lie if he wanted that job. Only being found out when the customer complained about how long his taxi was taking to get to him. The operators would also lie and say they were round the corner. Operators frequently had a valuable second income by giving good jobs to their mates in return for a suitable reward.
The size of firms were limited by the number of jobs they could give to drivers during peak times like pub out. This put the limit at about 30 cars per base set in a busy city area. The limit would be set by the ability of the operator to give out the work. Some firms would have multiple base sets but this would present its own problems. Like where do all the cars go when it’s quiet.
Computerisation led to bigger firms. The drivers radios, being replaced by a data box. This also meant the jobs could be given out more efficiently. When the driver was given a job he would plot his destination into the data box. The computer would then know it had a car in a certain area or going to that area.
The computer would create a list of cars in that particular area so a driver might be 4th turn in area 9. If area 9 was busy he might stay. On the other hand he might choose to drive to a different area with a better chance of work. What this meant was rather than returning to an office the driver could wait quietly where there was some likelihood of work. This in turn meant taxis came quicker for customers and the drivers could do more jobs in a certain length of time.
