LONDON

Taking a ride in a traditional black cab in London is usually much more expensive than using a ride-share service like Uber. It can cost double.

  But the cab drivers say they offer much better value for money because they can get you to your destination much more quickly and more efficiently, avoiding sudden traffic jams, roadwork or one of the many protest marches that regularly disrupt traffic flow in the British capital. And they provide a mine of information for their passengers. They can do this, they claim, because of “The Knowledge,” their total command of the layout of the city.

“When someone asks for a destination, you’ve got the whole of London in your head. That’s 36 square miles. That’s quite a big area,” black cab driver Sean Paul-Day told Marketplace on a recent trip through the heart of the metropolis. 

“To get the license to drive a black cab is a very stringent process,” he said.

“I had to commit to memory 25,000 streets and 50,000 points of interest, like pubs, clubs, galleries, monuments and museums. Only when you can show that you can navigate proficiently between those points are you allowed to work as a taxi driver in London.”  

Paul-Day must have a phenomenal memory, yes?
Black cab driver Sean Paul-Day:
“I’ve got the whole of London in my head.”

 “No better than anyone else’s,” he insisted. “It’s quite amazing what we can  remember when we put our mind to it.”

He’s being too modest. The mental effort required to learn the names and location of every street, avenue, mews and cul-de-sac within a 6 mile radius of Trafalgar Square, as well as 50,000 points of interest, is mind boggling.

The scale of the task becomes apparent when you enter a small, nondescript, prefabricated office building on an industrial estate on the far eastern outskirts of the city.  These are the unassuming headquarters of the London Knowledge School, one of a number of schools training the black cab drivers of the future. Inside, more than a dozen aspiring drivers pore over large maps of the capital for up to eight hours a day, memorizing the whole higgledy-piggledy hodgepodge of the metropolis and testing each other on the quickest routes through the maze.

“Take me from Tate Modern to West End Central police station, please,”  asks one of the students while another closes his eyes, furrows his brow and reels off the itinerary.

“Leave on left, Holland Street, right into Summer Street, right into Southwark Street, forward into Stamford Street…”

Doing The Knowledge and then sitting more than a dozen grueling exams can take anything from three years up to a decade, depending on whether the student is devoted full time to the task. The dropout rate, unsurprisingly, is high: 70%. But is The Knowledge still necessary?
 Won’t GPS do just as well?
 
“The Knowledge beats GPS every time,”
says Chris Campbell, owner of the London Knowledge School.

“Absolutely not,” said Chris Campbell, the owner of the school. “There have been a number of tests in which a London black cab driver has been pitted against GPS, and the cab driver, with his intimate knowledge of London, the pitfalls, the places, the little intricacies, has beaten the GPS every single time.”

Whether ever-improving technology will one day outpace the knowledgeable cab driver is another matter, but Campbell argues that The Knowledge performs another useful function: It’s a test of character.

“You need real grit and determination and perseverance to get through it,” he said. “That makes for a more dependable driver.”

Once qualified, cab drivers earn an average of $45,000 to $50,000 a year. Not spectacular, but in spite of that and the rigors of The Knowledge, there’s no shortage of wannabe drivers at Campbell’s school.

“I’m doing it because I want to be my own boss,” Brett Lynch, a security van driver, told Marketplace. Black cab drivers are all independent, self-employed sole traders who own or rent their cabs. “I want to be able go out and work when I want. Work for however long I want to work for. I want to be able to spend more time with my two young sons. It’s the flexibility that appeals to me,” Lynch said.

In spite of the attractions of the job, many licensed black cab drivers feel that life is getting tougher for them in the British capital.

“Our biggest beef,” said Angie Clarkson of the United Cabbies Group, which represents around 2,500 of the 20,000 drivers, “is that the authorities in this town have allowed more than 100,000 untrained ride-share drivers to swamp the streets of the capital. They cause a lot of congestion, and we don’t believe they offer anything like the reliable service we offer. They certainly don’t have The Knowledge,” she said.

The British authorities clearly favor increased competition, and many Londoners seem pleased to pay the lower fares of the ride-share operators, however unfair that may seem to the black cab drivers.   

But you won’t find many cab drivers complaining about the years they spent learning the layout of the city. 

“I definitely don’t regret doing The Knowledge,” said driver Paul-Day.   

“London is an incredibly fascinating city, and only when you’ve done The Knowledge do you start to relate to your surroundings here, all the architecture and the landmarks. I think if you were glued to a GPS system, which keeps you on these rigid, structured routes, I don’t think that would be any fun at all,” Paul-Day said. 

He said no one could regret learning that all-important skill — in driving as  in life — of knowing where you’re going.

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French taxi drivers blocked Nice airport Tuesday over a dispute with online ride-hailing services, snarling traffic for hours as film-makers and movie moguls tried to reach the nearby Cannes film festival.

Traffic in and out of the airport's two terminals was disrupted and a woman taxi driver was knocked down, with the driver's union threatening to stage another blockade on Friday.

The injured driver was taken to hospital but told AFP no bones had been broken after she was hit by a rival working for a ride-hailing service.
But she is filing a complaint with police after being left "covered in bruises".

A police source told AFP tensions between the rival drivers traditionally escalate ahead of the world's biggest film festival, which runs from May 14 to 26.

"It's always the same during the Cannes festival, the taxis line up in front of the private hire cars and it becomes a game of cat-and-mouse, it's not a brawl but it can get really crowded and things can get out of hand," he said.

Fabrice Cavallera, who heads the Nice taxi drivers' union, said they suspended the protest mid-afternoon but would resume the strike on Friday if the authorities did not impose restrictions on their ride-sharing rivals.

As part of an anti-fraud drive, taxi drivers have been faced with a series of impromptu checks, which they say private hire drivers have so far escaped.

Police were called in to break up the protest. Some drivers said travellers were forced to walk part of the way to the airport in order to avoid missing their flight.

May is a busy month for Nice's Cote d'Azur airport which sees a 15 percent increase in numbers due to the Cannes film festival and the Monaco Grand Prix.

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WALSALL

Police are searching for these two men after a taxi driver was slashed across the head with a machete in a terrifying attack.

The driver was targeted outside the Bradford Arms pub on Pleck Road, Walsall, as he attempted to pick up a customer.

Police have now released CCTV images in a bid to trace those wanted in connection with the attack on April 29.

The victim arrived at around 8.15pm, but five people got into his taxi.

When the driver told the customers he was not licensed to carry that many people, one of the group punched him in the face several times and threw his mobile phone on the ground.

The taxi driver was then hit with a machete, causing an injury to his head.

Anyone with information is asked to contact police via Live Chat at west-midlands.police.uk between 8am and midnight or call 101 anytime quoting 20WS/102360B/19 or Crimestoppers, anonymously, on

 0800 555 111. 

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BRIGHTON

Restrictions on out of town drivers working for taxi app Ola were promised if it gets a licence in Brighton and Hove.

An agreement between the authority and Ola would restrict any out of town drivers to picking up two fares within 24 hours before going back to their own area.

The memorandum of understanding was presented by Ola at a licensing panel meeting at Hove Town Hall on Monday, May 13.

The issue was raised after problems in the past with drivers licensed by Transport for London (TfL) and other local authorities operating in the city for Uber.

Ola is in the process of rolling out across the country, including seeking a licence with TfL.
Councillor Jackie O’Quinn asked about the company’s expansion, raising the issue of two pick ups.

She said: “We’ve had very serious problems with TfL when another company was given a licence.
“We were inundated with a lot of drivers which didn’t do a lot for good relations with the local trade.”

She wanted to make sure the restrictions were legally tight enough to prevent future problems and support the city’s taxi trade.

Ola’s operations director Karl Lutzow confirmed any driver attempting to pick up more than two fares outside their area would be invisible to the system until they returned to their patch.

In Brighton and Hove all licensed drivers must follow the city’s stringent regulations – known as the Blue Book – when operating as a taxi driver.
Councillor O’Quinn also asked if Ola would accept a one-year licence rather than five years.
Mr Lutzow asked for any such restriction to start once the company was ready to start operating, as at this stage it has not recruited drivers.

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GLASGOW

A WOMEN-ONLY taxi app designed to make female passengers feel safe has been thwarted by licensing chiefs for excluding men.
Glasgow City Council threw out Margo Welsh’s proposal to start Rosy and Pink Cars, offering female drivers to female passengers and their children.

She came up with the idea after seeing “the amount of sex attacks in this day and age”. But councillors dismissed her plan as “sexism” against men.

Now, the committee has been branded “inappropriate” by her lawyer.

“There’s definitely a need for this,” said Ms Welsh. “Loads of taxi companies are predominately male. It’s another option for women.”

She added: “I spoke to my family who said do you want to be driving men around at night? I wanted to be taking grannies to bingo and kids to school, rather than a stag do.”

But licensing convener Alex Wilson said: “If it was the other way round we would be looking at discrimination against females.”

“The whole not picking up male passengers is a concern to me. I don’t think we should discriminate at all.

Councillor Robert Connelly added: “It is essentially sexism towards males. It doesn’t sit right with me.”

Ms Welsh, who has vowed she won’t give up on her plan, was denied the opportunity to use her tenement flat in the north of the city as a booking office. She said: “I was a wee bit intimidated, I felt they were laughing, that my idea was ludicrous.”

“To say men are being discriminated against, I just don’t feel that.

“I’ve spoken to beauticians, women in supermarkets, even firemen. One said if his daughter is going to a nightclub he’d rather it was a female driver.”

Councillors criticised Ms Welsh for securing a private hire car licence herself, only not to use it or hand it back as required. Bailie John Kane said: “You’ve not even bothered reading your terms and conditions.” Ms Welsh admitted that was an “oversight”, when she couldn’t afford the insurance.

The committee questioned why male children could only use the service up to the age of 11. They also said driver conditions mean no passengers should be refused a journey, apart from in certain circumstances such as when they’re too drunk

“There had to be a cut off point,” Ms Welsh said. “I’ve got a son and when they get to high school age they can be boisterous. It was for the safety of drivers.”

Her lawyer Stephen McCaffrey said he disputed conditions would be breached by the app, adding councillors disliked the concept itself. “I have appeared before many committees over the last ten years throughout the UK. The hearing this morning was the most hostile and dismissive I have ever been before.”

“I accept that there may well be concerns about discrimination given it is female only app but felt the manner in which that was voiced and expressed was unprofessional and entirely inappropriate to say the least.”

A Council spokesman said the committee were not satisfied would avoid being discriminatory.
“It is a standard practice for licensing applications to be scrutinised and robustly questioned by committee members, particularly if there are concerns.”

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