NOTTINGHAM

The controversial penalty points scheme for taxi drivers in Nottingham city centre is not being enforced after midnight – despite being launched two months ago.

Under the city council scheme, introduced on April 1, taxi drivers face penalty points for flouting parking laws or having unroadworthy cars.

Four specialist staff will eventually enforce the scheme but the first two are under training and the others have yet to be appointed.

In the meantime, about 100 community protection officers (CPOs) enforce the scheme between 7am and midnight, helped by police and CCTV monitoring.

But that leaves midnight-7am uncovered – when, it is claimed, the more dangerous breaches happen, such as unauthorised drivers picking up fares.

Kaleem Ashraf, of Broxtowe, has been driving a hackney cab for eight years and says the scheme should be "void" because it is not changing the unsafe behaviour of drivers at night.

"The purpose was to improve standards. They should be checking drivers, headlights, tyres, licences, etc," he said. "We are now in June and after midnight there is no enforcement in the city at all.

"This is when more dangerous events happen like illegal pick-ups."

"CPOs are apparently trained but they only work until midnight, so that is when the monitoring stops – this is the most important time of the night that needs monitoring. People are currently unsafe after midnight.

"The first week it was launched, we did notice a difference. Taxi ranks were moving more fluidly and we physically saw people patrolling round. But after a week, everything went back to normal."

Mr Ashraf said he had been in touch with the council in early May to raise his concerns but nothing had come from it.

He added: "I have raised the issue with several senior people in the department.

"We were assured when the scheme launched that four officers had been recruited and it was ready to go. This was a false promise.

"We were told we would be introduced to them, and get to know them but, clearly, no-one has been hired, as we have met or seen no-one. We have been told many times 'recruitment is under way' but the scheme should not have been launched if the staff weren't in place. This scheme has already failed before it started."

http://bit.ly/2rNUAf2 

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Carpooling is coming to New York City’s yellow cabs.

A pair of local ride-sharing apps is teaming up to give customers a 40-percent discount metered taxi fares for rides they’re willing to share with another passenger.

To make it happen, Curb — a ride-hailing app operated by Verifone that’s used by roughly 65 percent of the city’s 13,500 green and yellow taxis — is teaming up with local ride-sharing app Via, whose algorithms are adept at mapping out efficient routes for picking up and dropping off multiple passengers.

The new service, which launches Tuesday, kicks in when a rider using either the Curb or Via app expresses a willingness to share a green or yellow taxi in exchange for a discount of 95 cents off the standard $1.95 booking fee.

Then, as the taxi takes off, Via’s matching-and-routing algorithm will seek out convenient real-time pick-ups along the way.

“Just as we route the vehicle in the most efficient way, we’ll route an additional passenger,” says Daniel Ramot, Via’s co-founder and CEO. “For example, if a passenger’s on 45th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues, we might say walk to the northeast corner of 6th Avenue, and we’ll pick you up there.”

Once sharing a taxi, the pick-up and original passenger each pay only 60 percent of the metered fare for their time together. If no additional passenger gets picked up, the original customer pays the fare in full but still benefits from the reduced booking fee.

For drivers, the Via-Curb partnership could deliver what Verifone marketing VP Jason Gross calls “an endless fare.”

“Drivers spend about 50 percent of their time looking for fares,” he explains. “This allows them to string those fares together in a very efficient way.”

Initially, the service will only be offered for routes between 32nd Street and 110th Street in Manhattan, but plans are afoot to expand it throughout Manhattan and into other boroughs.

The carpooling idea — which mimics similar services on tap from Uber and Lyft — is getting touted by the likes of Meera Joshi, chair of the city’s Taxi and Limousine Commission.

http://nypost.com/2017/06/06/nycs-yellow-cabs-are-adding-a-carpooling-option/
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CHICAGO

Ride-hailing apps are getting a one-star rating from the Chicago cab drivers whose livelihood they're challenging.

As Uber and Lyft expand, taxi revenue has fallen by 40% over the past three years, while 42% of cabs in Chicago aren't even operating, according to a study published by the city's taxi driver union and reported by USA Today.

This dropoff can be seen in the average monthly income being brought in by each active medallion — or the permit needed for drivers to pick up passengers who hail them on the street. The measure has dropped to $3,206 per medallion, down from $5,276 in January 2014, the study showed.

It's a direct result of a declining number of riders. The number of taxi passengers is now roughly 1.1 million a month, less than half of the 2.3 million figure in early 2014.

As such, it's getting more difficult to not only afford medallions, but also pay off the loans taken out to finance purchases. More than 350 foreclosure notices or foreclosure lawsuits have been initiated against medallion owners already this year, compared to 266 last year and 59 in 2015, according to the union report.

The re-sale value of medallions also reflects waning demand. They're fetching about $50,000 apiece in Chicago at the moment, down from roughly $350,000 a pop as recently as five years ago, according to data from the City of Chicago Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection. The lowest price paid for a medallion transfer this year is $35,000.

In order to fight mounting costs and competition, the taxi union recently asked the city to consider allowing older cabs to stay in service, waive a ground transportation tax of $98 per month, and get rid of a $1,000 fee to renew medallions every two years, according to the Chicago Tribune.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/uber-lyft-destroying-chicagos-cab-165100571.html