London

Euston station evacuated after taxi catches fire

Rail passengers have been evacuated from Euston station after a taxi caught fire on the rank outside.

Commuters tweeted images of the disruption as they were led out of the building.
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Taxi cartels to be 'App'ed to Death'

EU states have made huge strides in transport liberalisation over recent decades, especially in areas such as the air industry. But one sector that has remained stubbornly resistant to change in many of the continent’s towns and cities has been the licensed taxi lobby.
Across Europe, governments and town halls have tried on many occasions over the years to break up licensed taxi unions. The constant complaint of politicians and the public is that taxi drivers in many cities are organised in cartels that use tight monopolies to impose high fares on customers.

To keep drivers busy and well remunerated, these cartels strictly control the number of taxis that get a licence, imposing long waiting times on customers. The former French president Nicolas Sarkozy said in 2008 that “Paris is the only city in the world where it is hard to find a taxi”. Many European leaders – including his successor – can say the same today.

Governments in France, Italy and Greece, among others, have tried to undermine these cartels by expanding the number of licences on offer or by giving greater opportunities for private drivers to ply their trade as is the case in London. But the licensed drivers have successfully fought back, blockading roads and calling strikes.

Now, however, the cartels face a much bigger threat in the form of app-enabled taxi services. Increasingly popular apps run by companies such as Uber, a San Francisco based start-up, link private chauffeurs with mobile phone customers within minutes. Uber has been particularly prominent, raising $258m last year from a group of investors led by Google Ventures.

These taxi apps are unsettling licensed drivers not just in Europe but the US. Under pressure from the licensed taxi unions, regulators have come up with some perverse responses to the new phenomenon of “e-hailing”. This week a Brussels court issued an order banning Uber, stating that Uber drivers will be fined €10,000 if they are caught carrying private passengers.

Reining in these apps in this way is completely absurd. Internet-based technologies are revolutionising industries and shifting employment patterns across the world. Why should taxi drivers be exempt? Neelie Kroes, the EU digital commissioner, described the Brussels court’s decision as “crazy” and “outrageous”. She was right to do so.

The views of the taxi lobbyists cannot be completely dismissed. Licensed taxi drivers in many cities have paid large sums of money to acquire their permits, often through auction.

 In Paris, drivers pay more than €200,000 to acquire one of the limited number of state taxi licences.
 In Florence, the cost of permits was recently put at €300,000.

 New York yellow cab medallions have been sold at auction for close to $1m.

 Many drivers view these licences as an asset that will guarantee their pension. Having made that investment, they will fight hard against any attempt to devalue it.

At the same time, city regulators will be wary of allowing a taxi free-for-all. A completely unlicensed taxi market has very low costs of entry. If too many drivers enter this market, urban congestion will result. Arguments about the safety of an unregulated market also have some validity.

Still, “e-hailing” is bedding in and the cartels will have to respond. Licensed drivers appeal to some as a service that is more secure and regulated. But one thing they could do is learn some lessons from the taxi-app business. Hailo, a London-based app company, now has 60 per cent of the city’s black cab drivers on its books. It has neatly fused licensed taxis with new technology.


Ultimately, however, licensed taxis will only survive if they go further. There need to be more permits, lower fares and faster pickups. If the taxi cartels fail to change, they will be “apped” to death.
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TAXI FARES INCREASE TO BE REVIEWED BY ALLERDALE COUNCIL

Allerdale councillors will look again at plans to increase taxi fares.

Last month, the council voted to increase journeys by 10p – making it the first price change in four years.

But some cabbies say they would have to make hundreds of fares to fund a change to their meter to accommodate a 10p price hike.

The matter will be discussed again next week by councillors sitting on Allerdale’s licensing panel.

Davies Taxis, of Keswick, has objected to the planned increase.

They say the “minimal” financial gain didn’t justify the cost of having to get their meters recalibrated.

The taxi company has been invited to the meeting.

And Workington taxi driver Ray Cottier has previously said that increasing the cost by just 10p is a “waste of time.”

He said: “All it means is that the first mile goes up from £2.90 to £3,” he said.

The licensing panel has been given two recommendations. They can either keep the table of fares as originally proposed – 300 pence for the first mile, which comes into effect on June 1 – or change it to come into effect also on June 1.

But taxi driver Brian Sparks said: “The Hackney carriage table of fares is in need of urgent increase.

“Yet again one rise has had to last several years.

“At least 10 per cent is required on the first mile and subsequent 1/5 mile charges to keep up with all the other constantly rising costs, including your licensing. Ten per cent is less than the rise in inflation since the last increase.

“I don’t consider it an unreasonable request.”

Fellow driver Gerard Glaister suggested increasing the rate to £3.20 “as we have not had an increase for four years.”


The licensing committee’s recommendation will be considered by the council on May 14 and that decision will be final.
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US taxi app Uber recently received a $333 million investment from Google, whilst UK-based company Hailo has had a reported $77 million.  

The taxi economy is worth almost £9 billion in the UK and no one company has the lion’s share of it. This clearly presents a valuable opportunity, which is why many technology companies are keen to move in and try and extract some of this revenue for themselves. But will it happen and is it even possible?

The seemingly obvious solution, and one that’s getting lots of media coverage at the moment, is the taxi app. That's just what the guys at Hailo did, when a group of taxi drivers and investors got together to create what is arguably, London’s most popular taxi app.

Whilst Hailo is undeniably servicing a need in the marketplace, it does have its limitations. Black cabs are not the cheapest way to travel in London, especially over long distances, so their market is somewhat limited.

Alternative players in the market, like Kabbee, use London minicabs, which can be half the price of a black cab – so between the two, that's the London market covered.  

But isn’t that just the easy part? A booming international city with millions of potentials customers travelling the streets each day is all well and good, but what about the rest of the travellers across the UK? How will the apps fare as well in Rochdale or Lincoln? Move out of London and the landscape changes dramatically.

So what does an app need to make headway in the other 1500 towns in the UK? Well, it needs customers and willing drivers ready to share their income: two things that are not easy to win over when you’re not in the capital city.

Long-established taxi companies are not going to share their income easily, and customers who ring 555555 every time they need a taxi are unlikely to change their habits any time soon either.

It is also important to point out that successful taxi businesses will always need to deliver good customer service. Yes, an app is quick and convenient, but right now in the UK, phone calls bookings compared to app bookings are probably in the region of 999 to 1.

As mentioned above, apps like Hailo are designed for the impulsive  ‘I need a taxi right now’ market. This doesn’t include the taxi work includes the pre-booked work, airport transfers and business customers.

Then there are other more serious business issues such as cash and VAT to consider. It's fair to say the taxman doesn’t see all the money in any industry where cash is heavily used.

When you suddenly start to map every transaction out electronically, things start to change quickly. Take all this into account and suddenly, the goal of getting full UK coverage looks much more challenging. 

Shanghai recently had a crackdown on its booming taxi app market, banning them both in rush hour and also completely from the private hire minicab fleet. When you take into account $43 million investment that had been put in the app market, the no rules appear very harsh.

But technology companies far too often have had their own way. Bulling their way into new markets, killing off the competition, extracting huge profits and then minimising their tax liabilities.

Technology companies will not win over the taxi companies easily and they will find impossible to replace them and take over by simply releasing a new app that connects passengers to customers.

A symbiotic approach will be needed where technology companies work with both taxi companies and drivers. Building a customer base will be much slower than in the capital and patience will be needed, as well as an acceptance of heavy losses while a customer base is built.

But even after all this, the app market will still be a relativity small chunk of a £9 billion market, with over 80% of that money going to the drivers. Technology companies won't really start to see massive revenues from the taxi industry until the invention of cars that can drive themselves. Or, wait – doesn’t Google already have these?

Start-up Taxicode believes the future of the taxi industry is to work with all taxi companies with a piece of software that can connect everything together, and the app just one of many interfaces and connectors. Time will tell what makes the biggest impact on the industry.

In ten years there will likely be a combination of some exciting emerging technologies. The Google self-driving car, Google OAA car dashboard software and a universal booking system connected to all internet devices and third parties.


In reality, this could lead to only a few major players in the industry. One thing is for sure, they will be many battles and blood lost, before an overall wining technology is found.