OLDHAM

Cabbies should ‘get an overcoat’ in winter instead of keeping their engines running to keep warm while waiting at ranks, a town hall boss has said.

Under a proposal by the chair of Oldham’s licensing committee, councillor Norman Briggs, a new condition could be introduced by the town hall to stop vehicles idling in a bid to tackle air pollution.

Coun Briggs said drivers should be prevented from keeping their cabs ticking over to use the heaters, adding it was ‘tough’ if they were cold.

“They’re getting no sympathy from me,” he told committee members.

“Get an overcoat.”

John Garforth, the council's trading standards and licensing manager, said it would be possible to introduce a ‘no idling while waiting’ policy.

“I’m not justifying why they do it, they are adding to the problem like any other vehicle. That’s why you’ve got cut-out cars now for that very reason,” he said.

He joked the council could instead ‘buy them all a coat or a pair of gloves’.

“I can certainly get a message out to the trade on idling. When we come to consult on revised conditions I can see the importance of that and it may well form part of the Greater Manchester conditions,” Mr Garforth told members.

“If it doesn’t for some reason we can we can put that as a local consideration and bring that back to a future meeting to make a decision on it if that’s something you want to introduce."

Coun Briggs said members were ‘definitely interested’ in introducing the measure to stop the practice.

He highlighted the taxi rank at Tommyfield in Oldham town centre as one of the places where it was an issue.

Coun Briggs said: “It’s become a bit of a hobby horse for me, I went up this morning and there are three taxis on the rank all with the engines running.

“They’re not getting any sympathy for me on that one, I worked outside for years and years when I was in contracting on building sites. They’re getting no sympathy from me.”

Mr Garforth is heading up the Greater Manchester-wide project which aims to bring in minimum standards for taxi drivers across all ten boroughs.

He said that a key focus was looking at how the trade linked to poor air quality in the region.
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“Headlines have already been reported that air pollution across Greater Manchester contributes to early deaths of around 1,200 people," he said.

“And licensed vehicles of which there are 12,000 licensed by the ten GM authorities covering the population of 2.8m. Between those vehicles they do 21,000 jobs a year from GM.

“So they are a large transport provider just like the other transport providers that we have across the conurbation.”

He added that some vehicles already licensed are compliant with EU emissions standards, but others are not.

“It’s a huge project that hopefully will contribute to a better scheme and particularly with the air quality, a better health across Greater Manchester," he said.

"Because we can’t generally see particles as you’re walking around - it’s not like China where there is a smog, or in the 50s and 60s - but it’s there, it’s in the air and we are breathing it in on a regular basis.”

The minimum Greater Manchester standards could see a common livery introduced for private hire vehicles.

Mr Garforth said that in a survey of residents, 85 per cent were in favour of a form of common identification which would help them recognise the ones licensed locally.

Source=M E N
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BBC Promote MCR Streetcars

 Who is going to decide how we travel around our cities - Californian tech giants or local transport businesses?

On Tech Tent we hear from the UK firm helping local taxi operators take the fight to Uber and from an American scooter firm trying to change the law in Britain.

I took a trip to Manchester this week and leaving the station, I had a number of options to get to my destination in Cheadle, on the outskirts of the city.

I could have grabbed a cab from the station rank or used the ubiquitous Uber - but instead I downloaded an app called Streetcars.

This enabled me to order a minicab from the local firm of that name and it deposited me at the headquarters of Autocab - the company that built the app for Streetcars and about 500 other local taxi firms across the UK.

Autocab has built the iGo network, which means that you can download the app in Manchester and use it with a local cab firm in Nottingham or Southampton or Bristol, too.

The company's chief executive, Safa Alkateb, says it deals with the competitive advantage Uber has had until now over local firms:

"Uber can tell you, 'Download my app and you can use it in 20 cities, or wherever you go'," he explains. "In the past, these local taxi firms had no way of doing that."

The problem, though, is that Uber is now very well known among the kind of people who use apps, certainly compared with the likes of Manchester's Streetcars, although Alkateb says we should not underestimate the power of local brands.

Autocab has been providing various services to cab firms for 20 years and was developing apps back before Uber got off the ground.

So I put to the CEO the obvious question: why wasn't this Manchester firm heading for a $120bn (£92bn) IPO and global domination and not the start-up born in San Francisco?

"Tens of others had technology just as good as Uber that never went anywhere. The difference is Uber has been heavily financed by Wall Street and they've raised more than $13bn. We didn't have the same access to capital."

He says building Uber's app might have cost something like $30m but the rest of its huge pile of cash has gone on subsidising rides, offering discounts, effectively buying up the market.


https://goo.gl/rFFQsE
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 BRIGHTON

A TAXI driver blocked off a major bus route when he locked himself out of his vehicle today.

Kirolus Hana had left his car running while he collected a customer in Saint James’s Street, Brighton, but came back to find it had locked itself.

The 33-year-old said: “I had a pick up outside Morrisons so I left the key in the car and left it running.

“It’s not something I meant to happen. I’ve done it so many times but this time it had locked itself, so I have called my wife as she has a spare key at home and lives nearby.”

The car was parked across the street so other vehicles could not pass and brought the road to a standstill for 30 minutes.

Bus driver Lugano Mwanksuye, who was stuck behind the vehicle, said: “I was meant to leave here at 1.15, but it’s now 1.40.

“I radioed in to my office as soon as I knew and now all the other buses on this route are now travelling along the seafront instead.”

 A queue of vehicles formed behind the stranded taxi including several buses and many travellers were delayed in their journeys.

One bus user said: “I need to get to the hospital and I was going to take the bus but I guess I’ll just have to walk now.”

Another said: “I would walk but I have a heart condition so I really rely on the buses.”

The vehicle was cleared at 1.42pm and traffic began to move again as normal.

https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/17213552.chaos-as-taxi-blocks-st-jamess-street-for-half-an-hour/
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