Can't Win

Late last night at the Opera House roundabout I came across the Ministry of Transport in action. Two officers out of uniform but dressed in all-black were booking a hapless cabbie who’d been part of an unofficial rank. Needless to say he didn’t look happy, gesticulating wildly and yelling in protest whilst it appeared one officer was using her mobile phone to record his displeasure.

Last week the MOT announced they would be conducting undercover operations against offending cabbies. After hours, all over town, impromptu ranks form at venues with a steady supply of passengers. Some ‘ranks’ are certainly a hindrance to traffic whilst others are downright dangerous in their illegal positioning and deserve to be policed. However the Opera House roundabout is one of the safest ‘ranks’ with no interference to traffic. So to be booked there is a tough rap.

Sydney City Council could follow this example for an understanding of our problem.

I mentioned this to a passenger shortly after, explaining how the MOT was responding to illegal touting and fare hiking. ‘Well, if some are willing to pay, why shouldn’t cabbies earn extra during high demand ?’, he argued. ‘It’s simply free market forces at play. Either you’re public transport like bus drivers on award wages or you’re self-employed charging what people will pay’. On one hand this sounded fair enough but also unfair to those unable to pay unregulated fares. Feel free to offer your own views on the issue.

Meanwhile, Perth taxi passengers have just had a horror weekend.

Comments

[a2ni5tf9y72h51]

I assume you need a license to operate a cab. If so you have to obey the rules governing the license. Presumably the regulation of cabs and those rules exist for a reason: without them people got cheated left and right even during non peak seasons. The rules exist not to provide transportation for poor people but to protect vulnerable people from being victimized.

Even in the absence of regulation the rates should not be determined by the driver they should be determined by the company the driver works for. If you call a cab you should expect the company to have a consistent pricing scheme and not let drivers charge whatever they feel like.

The rules also exist to protect the drivers right? If prices are negotiable then the passenger can make up what ever price he wants to once he is at his destination.

The free market still exists, if you have extra money, hire a limo, or a private driver.

[anon]

If drivers are so keen for a free market to operate then they should accept this at all times throughout the year, not just peak periods like christmas.

I dont fancy my chances walking up to a rank of ten taxis in the middle of winter, or some other dead period, and insisting on paying the metered fare minus ten dollars.

[Yobbo]

Was your passenger me? because that's exactly what I said in this comments thread.

. Presumably the regulation of cabs and those rules exist for a reason

Yes, they exist to protect the profits of Taxi plate owners.

The rules also exist to protect the drivers right? If prices are negotiable then the passenger can make up what ever price he wants to once he is at his destination.

A passenger can also just walk away and refuse to pay now, and there's not a lot a cab driver can do about it.

The free market still exists, if you have extra money, hire a limo, or a private driver.

Lol. That's not a "free market". A free market means that anyone with a car can carry you for a fare.

If drivers are so keen for a free market to operate then they should accept this at all times throughout the year, not just peak periods like christmas.

Of course drivers are not keen for a "free market" to operate. A free market would include allowing about 10,000 more cabs to compete against them. Taxi prices would be significantly lower and commuters and the previously unemployed (that is everyone except the currently protected taxi owners and drivers) would be better off.

Drivers are keen to lobby the government to let them increase prices. A free market is a completely different thing.

Adrian himself hates the free market except when it suits him, like in this situation.

And by the way Adrian, have you ever heard the expression "where there's smoke, there's fire?" I've been telling you for years Perth taxis are the worst in the world, as have many other commentators here. Perth taxis aren't "getting a hard time", they are being fairly criticised by a public that is sick and tired of the corruption and rent-seeking that is destroying our nightlife.

[Doz]

Truth is, it not just during the peak season that this occurs. It happens all year round, especially at special events/venues. Its only been brought up cause some cried foul to the media.

This is a perfect example of taxis competing against the hire car industry. And a lot of the taxis are affiliated with hire cars. I know it’s illegal for hire cars to tout too, but they can get away with the high pricing.

Either you drive a taxi and follow their rules, or you go and change to the hire industry charge what you like.

[James]

Now if i remember correctly this started during the Robbie Williams concert at the SCG. With reports of cabbies charging up to $200 for a fare into the city? Fair enough this is alarming, but what is more alarming is that people couldn't have been bothered just to simply stroll back into town! It isn't that far.

[Lee]

"On one hand this sounded fair enough but also unfair to those unable to pay unregulated fares."

I don't think I read anywhere that Adrian said 'it suits him when it suits him.'

To my understanding of his post...he is just expressing a situation.

[Yobbo]

Adrian doesn't think any other deregulation moves are "fair enough".

[kuntrykabbie]

Yobbo:
I don't think you quite understand "de-regulation" It means any one with a drivers licence and a car can be a taxi. If Ivan Milat was out he could whack a sticker on his beat up old VW and look for fares.
Take a look at the de-regulated New Zealand taxi industry. Walk down Aukland and in every vacant car space is a clapped out old 4 cylinder thunder box with a dirty unkempt driver on the footpath touting for fares.
De-regulations effects not only the taxi operator but the passenger as well.
That's why New Zealand is trying to bring it's out of control industry to heel at the moment.

[adrian]

FWIW, I don't really have a firm view either way concerning deregulation of the taxi industry. Mainly because the NSW taxi industry is so complex as I've claimed previously.

If the NSW taxi industry wasn't such a mess of conflicting and vested interests then I suspect it would have been deregulated by now, as with many other industries. In fact the Commonwealth has ordered the State Government to deregulate the taxi industry but they refused and now face a $51m fine.

Also I know Yobbo's long stated position on the matter and fair enough too, it's another view with advantages and disadvantages.

Oh, about Perths taxi service. How much of a contributing factor is other modes of public transport there late at night ? Wouldn't it make sense to increase bus and train services during times of passenger demand spikes ? Whilst WA is economically strong is it the case that wage rates make running all-night public transport unviable for the State Government's costs. Ultimately though, taxi services are only designed to complement other public transport, not replace it.

Me, I couldn't care less about the politics of the situation as it's a veritable shitfight. If they deregulate taxis then I'll make adjustments. If that doesn't work then I'll simply look for another job. I'm certainly won't be dying in a ditch fighting for a regulated or deregulated taxi service.

[Yobbo]

Obviously not having other modes of transport is a contributing problem, but the same is true of any other place in the world. The only public transport I know of that runs 24 hours is the New York Subway.

Even Tokyo shuts down its trains from midnight-5am. Do Sydney's trains run 24/7?

The problem with Perth's public transportation system is twofold:

Firstly, it doesn't go anywhere useful. Unlike a subway that will drop you off within 5 minutes walk of your house, Perth is a hugely spread out city and only has 4 train lines to cover it all. The vast majority of people need to drive their car to the train station first and THEN catch a train, so it's really not any improvement on driving to the pub in the first place.

Secondly: Pubs close at 1-2am but the trains don't start until 6am. So you've got at least 4 hours of waiting around.

Other, less shit cities have nightlife venues open all night, so you can party all night then catch the first train home. If you live near a train station that is, which nobody in Perth does.

Adding to this is the fact that every Perth nightlife area is a very dangerous place to be late at night, due to roaming gangs and drunks who have all been thrown out of the pub.

The liquor licensing regime is as much to blame as the taxi industry, because the safest place to be is always INSIDE the pub, not walking the streets outside. Unfortunately WA's laws make this impossible.

As for Kunrykabbie: Ivan Milat could just walk up to you on the street and murder you too. And that's what usually happens in Perth at the moment.

I'd take my chances with 1 unknown cab driver rather than 10 drunks in a dark alley any time.

Plus there's no reason why prospective cab drivers couldn't still be required to sit a licence test and have a police clearance. The problem is the quota on Taxi plates creating a shortage of taxis, not driver registration.

If it would make you happy I would be quite happy to create a separate class of license for those who wish to take fares in their own vehicle, which would require a police clearance and a map reading test along with the standard driving test.

[AG Canberra]

Here in Canberra to solve the late night xmas transport problems they introduced the Night Rider buses - 5 bucks to your suburb then a short walk home. Takes the pressure off the cabs so no waiting for 2-4 hours.

What we do have a big problem with is the voice recognition software now being used instead of phone operators to take bookings....it has been so bad the issue was brought up in question time up at the Big House....

[Yobbo]

Perth is approxiamately 50 times the size of Canberra.

[randwickbelle]

I remember standing at a taxi rank in Park St Sydney for over 3 hours trying to get home to Leichhardt in the early morning after a night out, this was in the early 90s i think. The Nightrider busses etc were brought in not long after this, perfect solution for Perths problems. Lovely city is Perth, great freeways, trains, busses and bike track all incorporated in them right from the start, they just need some follow through for late night transport.
All the best for 2007 A, keep up the good work.

[Brendan]

A free market system would be one where there was no restriction on price AND there was no restriction on the number of taxis allowed to operate. Many taxi drivers don't seem to understand this and only want the price to be free, but not the number of cars allowed to operate. A system that has one part regulated but not the other is not a free market system but a manipulated system designed to rip off customers.

In a free market system in other industries, generally we do not see ridiculously inflated prices (20x normal price) in times of high demand. Myers and David Jones don't suddenly increase the price of a particular line of goods just because they are getting low on stock. Restaurant's don't inflate their prices by 2000% when all but one table on a given sitting. There is generally a recommended retail price which no-one exceed, and discounts around town to various levels by individual businesses.

Unlike most businesses, you really can't tell one taxi business from another, so you really can't avoid the businesses that you'd choose not to support due to their business practices and pricing policies if you could indeed identify them from a reasonable distance.

The State restrictions of licensed cabs and "closed market" laws that prevent any other person or non-licensed company from operating taxi type services would contribute to artificially inflated prices of taxi fares at peak times - therefore they too would have to be removed in order to establish a true free market system.

A free-market system would also remove the 25% more expensive fare rates that kick in at night, and again in a free market system a customer should be able to walk down the rank of taxi drivers that have been already waiting 1 or 2 hours and try to get the best possible price. This sort of system works in many 3rd world countries. It's a stressful nightmare in countries that operate like this, but the customer always pays less ... unless they are driven to a dark lane and mugged by the taxi driver.

I'm sure we would then find in a true free market situation that prices will adjust to the standard levels they currently are or taxi drivers would be either no better off, or probably even worse off.

An effective example of a freer market system than what Sydney has operates in London where, at night, you can get what they call "mini-cabs". This is effectively an operation of a localised call centre and youths, or perhaps recent immigrants, trying to make a buck driving private cars at night. They are usually cheaper rates than the ordinary black London cabs, and you can certainly get one without too much delays. Sure you have to give them strict directions and they might bang out music that isn't to your taste, but you do get home.

If London or most other countries had systems like Sydney's taxi system of long waits late at night with absolutely no alternative transport then there would be huge numbers of deaths from exposure to the cold freezing weather. Australian taxi drivers are lucky that they haven't had this issue drive policy and make Government act to fix the problem and de-regulate the number of taxis allowed to operate.

Personally I like the current regulated price, and accept that the number of taxis needs to be restricted in order for the taxi drivers that do operate to make a wage that is sustainable for them. I would also like to see a system of "mini-cabs" allowed to operate at peak times to avoid long delays. Taxi operators that want to increase their income could then set up those "mini-cab" businesses and make extra money legitimately doing something useful for society rather than ripping people off with non-standard fares.

[adrian]

Well said Brendan, though when the State Governmnent finally opens the closed market is the big question.