On 3rd July, 2015 at Sale Magistrates Court, Dennis Bryan, a private hire driver licensed by Manchester City Council, was found guilty of three offences, namely picking up a fare without a booking, driving without insurance and failing to wear his driver’s badge. This followed an undercover operation by Trafford Council’s enforcement staff.

 Mr Bryan was fined a total of £300, given six penalty points on his licence, ordered to pay costs of £553 and a victim surcharge of £20.

 He was one of a number of private hire drivers caught out by checks conducted at the end of the Manchester United game against Crystal Palace on 8November 2014. Whilst parked up on Chester Road Mr Bryan was approached by two council officers posing as potential customers. They confirmed with him that he was free to take them to Piccadilly Station for £15.

The operation was part of an on-going series, mounted in response to reports to the council of widespread problems with illegal plying around the ground on match days.

Executive Member for Environment and Operations, Councillor John Reilly, said: “Trafford Council will not tolerate private hire drivers who flout what are, after all, important legal controls. We hope that this has been a lesson learned for Mr Bryan and one which other drivers will heed.

The law is clear, within Trafford only our Licensed Hackney Carriages can be hailed on the street without a booking. By making illegal pick-ups in this way, private hire drivers invalidate their insurance, put customers at risk and also take business away from those operating within the law.”

http://www.trafford.gov.uk/residents/news/articles/2015/20150707-trafford-council-prosecutes-manchester-private-hire-driver-dennis-bryan.aspx
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The passenger of an Uber cab has spoken of fearing for his life when the vehicle crashed and caught fire with him inside it during a trip to Heathrow.

Florian Pedemanaud, 32, was then left shocked and outraged after he complained to Uber and the company only offered him a £35 refund as compensation.

Mr Pedemanaud said he was asleep in the vehicle today when it crashed into the central reservation crash barrier on the M4 and was then struck by another vehicle.

With his chin bleeding and a pain in his jaw, he began filming the smoking interior of the vehicle on his cellphone before escaping moments before it turned into a fireball.

The French-born businessman, visiting London for work, told The Evening Standard he felt as though he 'could have died' in the accident.

However, he was even more shocked to find that Uber was only offering him a £35 refund as compensation.

He told the paper: 'I contacted Uber and said "what are you going to do for me?" They said we just refund you the £35 ride. I just got so angry, receiving sincere apologies and £35, it's like a joke.'

In a statement, an Uber spokesman told MailOnline: 'We were shocked to hear about this accident and immediately reached out to the rider and partner-driver in question to ensure they were both okay.

'We have opened an investigation and of course refunded this trip. We've also offered the rider support in going through the necessary insurance claims.

'Uber is carrying out over two million trips a month in London alone, and fortunately accidents of this nature are extremely rare.'

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3152691/Passenger-says-nearly-killed-Uber-minicab-went-flames-taxi-app-firm-offered-35-
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BRISTOL City Council has successfully prosecuted an out of town taxi driver caught illegally picking up passengers in the city.

Nirmal Singh Bajwa, licensed with Caerphilly Council, picked up two enforcement officers who had not pre booked a journey.

Mr Bajwa pleaded guilty to plying for hire and of invalidating his insurance. He was fined £300 and ordered to pay £500 prosecution costs. He was also given six penalty points and disqualified from driving for six months.

The prosecution is part an ongoing targeted operation, looking to crack down on taxi drivers licensed by other Licensing Authorities illegally plying for hire across Bristol.

http://www.bristolpost.co.uk
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Taxi firms that move from human drivers of gas-powered cabs to automated electric taxis could cut vehicle emissions by over 90 per cent, according to a study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Most of these emission cuts come from shifting from oil power to electric, but the study found that autonomous taxi services have a couple of advantages that make them more efficient than private electric vehicles. The study, which looks at predictions for car use in 2030, sees two key areas of savings.

Firstly, the style of car dispatched can be fitted to the ride, with smaller vehicles delivering the majority of taxi rides, which consist of one or two people without luggage. More capacious vehicles can be reserved for larger groups with lots of baggage.

Secondly, given the short range of most taxi rides, electric cars are more cost efficient than petrol cars. That is even more important when you add in the effects of having autonomous vehicles, Dr Jeff Greenblatt, coauthor of the paper published in Nature Climate Change, told The Register.

"Taxis are used much more than private cars, so the number of electric miles traveled really changes the economic equation," he explained.

"We found that, based on simple economic model, an electric taxi would be more cost effective today, but for current driven vehicles the range is short for electric. When you take them offline for charging it's inconvenient for the driver, but a robot doesn't care so much about that and would be part of a fleet."

Thus, shifting to electric, autonomous taxis in 2030 would cut vehicle emissions by 90 per cent compared to a gas-powered car on the road today. If 5 per cent of the cars sold in 2030 were electric, that would equate to saving 7 million barrels of oil per year and would reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by between 2.1 and 2.4 million metric tons of CO2 per year.

There are other factors to consider with automated vehicles, both good and bad, Greenblatt explained. On the plus side, autonomous vehicles can drive closer together on the road to reduce congestion and increase efficiency, by allowing cars to slipstream each other.

The downside of all this technology, however, is that the estimated quarter of a million people who earn their living as licensed taxi drivers, and those who freelance on services like Lyft and Uber, would be out of a job.

"I don’t think there's an easy answer to that – it's another example of technology having a big change on workers," Greenblatt said.

"It's something that we don’t plan for well as a society and it really should be considered. We don't know where the new jobs will open up, we'll just have to let the market work and be compassionate."


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/07/robot_taxi_service_could_cut_emissions_and_speed_traffic_flows/