Uber

[bickster]

4 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

I'll bow to your knowledge of the taxi trade, but this point is a constant angle of scaremongering i see about pensions, and it's just not possible with a defined contribution pension, which almost all modern pensions are, including Uber's. It's a fund of cash immediately owned but not yet accessible to the employee. The employer can not possibly raid the fund, and even them going out of business can't wipe out the pension. The trade-off for that is that our pension security is tied to the whims of the stock market.

Yes I agree really but I just wouldn't put it past them to try

[Davkaus]

29 minutes ago, bickster said:

Yes I agree really but I just wouldn't put it past them to try

They're a scummy company so I've no doubt they'd get up to some shenanigans if they could, but the funds aren't just legally ringfenced so they "shouldn't", once the monthly pension payment is made it's completely outside of their control.

It might seem nitpicky, but I've spoken to too many people who don't pay into their pension because of horror stories like BHS, when it couldn't possibly happen to DC pensions. The government has actually done quite a good job of ensuring even for DB pensions, employees don't get completely shafted, so I find talk of pension pots being raised quite frustrating, as there are people misinformed into thinking it's still a possibility, it's quite dangerous. I'm sure not many people are taking pensions advice from VT, but I feel compelled to correct this whenever I hear it, we've all got to have a hobby.

Edited August 14, 2021 by Davkaus

[limpid]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

Uber has destroyed the traditional Private Hire model in London, it was too immature to survive the arrival of "rideshare" because the rules governing London had only been in place a few years. The rest of the country PH will survive and rethrive when Uber goes

Is the trade exploring having a single nationwide app to make life easier for users?

[HanoiVillan]

12 hours ago, bickster said:

Not any more it isn't. They've treated the drivers so badly in the US that the number of drivers has fallen dramatically (was already happening before the pandemic but that has accelerated the issue) and the model is so completely different to the original model that instead of getting 75% of the fare, they are now lucky to get 40%. Lyft is even worse. The only reason they still have drivers is the scarcity of drivers and the constant surging.

Not sure whether you saw it the other day when it got some numbers, and it is a fairly long thread, but I did think of you when reading it:

 

[bickster]

14 minutes ago, limpid said:

Is the trade exploring having a single nationwide app to make life easier for users?

Not really feasable due to many competing and incompatible interests

EDIT: thats the tl:dr The actual answer would be the longest post in VTs history. Two sides of the trade that absolutely hate each other. Every local authority has different rules, London / Not London even have different laws governing the trade. Most PH Operators / Hackney dispatch companies (like ComCab) are also competing interests. The trade is more tribal than all the fans in the football pyramid. WHo pays for the development of the App? Whoever does that has the power, that rules out all the dispatch companies (essentially what Uber tried to do), thats before you get into employed / contractor / self-employed and a whole bunch of other issues.

[limpid]

6 minutes ago, bickster said:

Not really feasable due to many competing and incompatible interests

That's a pain. I'd pay a (small) premium or subscription for that.

PS. I mean for advance bookings, not a "get me a car now" service.

[bickster]

Just now, limpid said:

PS. I mean for advance bookings, not a "get me a car now" service.

Advance booking is not the service you think it is. What people think it is (a guaranteed on time service) would cost so much more to deliver. Drivers would have to be taken off the road much earlier to guarnatee the on time service, thats the driver losing income, so that has to be compensated for and would probably double the fare in itself, then there's the infrastructure required to monitor such a service which increases the dispatch company's costs, so again adding more cost.

[limpid]

6 minutes ago, bickster said:

Advance booking is not the service you think it is. What people think it is (a guaranteed on time service) would cost so much more to deliver. Drivers would have to be taken off the road much earlier to guarnatee the on time service, thats the driver losing income, so that has to be compensated for and would probably double the fare in itself, then there's the infrastructure required to monitor such a service which increases the dispatch company's costs, so again adding more cost.

And yet I can book a taxi from my local firm to take me to the station in the morning. I'm surprised that they can cope

[bickster]

1 minute ago, limpid said:

And yet I can book a taxi from my local firm to take me to the station in the morning. I'm surprised that they can cope

You live in a rather small market. "Nationalising" taxi dispatch would not have the desired effect.

[limpid]

Just now, bickster said:

You live in a rather small market. "Nationalising" taxi dispatch would not have the desired effect.

That's why I stressed this wasn't dispatch. I guess I have to rely on Google search results.

[bickster]

1 minute ago, limpid said:

That's why I stressed this wasn't dispatch

You want a taxi, whether now or pre-booked, it's all dispatch unless its a Hackney Carriage hailed off the street or a rank (and even then it can be - Glasgow Taxis springs to mind here)

[limpid]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

You want a taxi, whether now or pre-booked, it's all dispatch unless its a Hackney Carriage hailed off the street or a rank (and even then it can be - Glasgow Taxis springs to mind here)

I'm surprised that the trade wants to spend money on SEO in order to get trade. Or are they only for locals?

.

[bickster]

21 minutes ago, limpid said:

I'm surprised that the trade wants to spend money on SEO in order to get trade. Or are they only for locals?

.

On this I can only speak for my experience in my market. We really don't spend a penny on SEO to get trade and the only company that does is the subject of this topic.

Firstly, no taxi company can currently compete with Ubers finances, so spending money on SEO would just be chucking cash down a bottomless pit

It is also often misunderstood what a taxi dispatch company is and who is the customer. The Taxi Co makes money in the traditional model from the driver, the driver is the customer. Passengers are the customers of the drivers but obviously the situation skews the normal customer relationship as the passenger believes that they are the customer of the taxi company (and most Taxi Co's indeed play up to this). The drivers who generate the income for the companies don't give a shit about SEO, they simply want for want of a better term, bums on seats. And that is why Taxis tend to advertise locally with billboards, maildrops, local radio advertising etc, they need the visibility of that for their clients (the drivers) to feel like they are getting value from using their brand. Add to that that local trade is regular trade and  tourists will only generate a small amount of trade for their clients for a short period of time and to maintain that means constantly chasing further SEO because others will place higher up the rankings in time, so more money needs to spent again and again for very little actual financial gain, it might add a few drivers to the fleet but not really many. Visibility of advertising to drivers is far more important because drivers don't Google cab firms in the area, why would they. Drivers have the radio on, see billboards whilst driving and live locally so get the advertising materials delivered through their doors. Taxi advertising is more about the invisible message than it is about trying to get customers.

You'll find a lot of the people on the dispatch side of the trade that will not agree with this, they really don't understand the buisness that they are in and are succeeding despite themselves

[limpid]

4 minutes ago, bickster said:

On this I can only speak for my experience in my market. We really don't spend a penny on SEO to get trade and the only company that does is the subject of this topic.

Firstly, no taxi company can currently compete with Ubers finances, so spending money on SEO would just be chucking cash down a bottomless pit

It is also often misunderstood what a taxi dispatch company is and who is the customer. The Taxi Co makes money in the traditional model from the driver, the driver is the customer. Passengers are the customers of the drivers but obviously the situation skews the normal customer relationship as the passenger believes that they are the customer of the taxi company (and most Taxi Co's indeed play up to this). The drivers who generate the income for the companies don't give a shit about SEO, they simply want for want of a better term, bums on seats. And that is why Taxis tend to advertise locally with billboards, maildrops, local radio advertising etc, they need the visibility of that for their clients (the drivers) to feel like they are getting value from using their brand. Add to that that local trade is regular trade and  tourists will only generate a small amount of trade for their clients for a short period of time and to maintain that means constantly chasing further SEO because others will place higher up the rankings in time, so more money needs to spent again and again for very little actual financial gain, it might add a few drivers to the fleet but not really many. Visibility of advertising to drivers is far more important because drivers don't Google cab firms in the area, why would they. Drivers have the radio on, see billboards whilst driving and live locally so get the advertising materials delivered through their doors. Taxi advertising is more about the invisible message than it is about trying to get customers.

You'll find a lot of the people on the dispatch side of the trade that will not agree with this, they really don't understand the buisness that they are in and are succeeding despite themselves

I read this back and it sounds a bit patronising - it's not meant like that.

 

I just want to be able to get a car when I'm visiting other parts of the country.

What you describe appears to be a very old fashioned business model where the consumer is an afterthought. As a Taxi Co, your customer is the driver. That's dumb as the money doesn't come from them. In this structure who is responsible for business development / growth? The trade needs to stop pretending that each taxi co is running a franchise operation. There must be companies running as co-ops or simply employing drivers rather than circling the drain waiting for IR35 to kill the existing model.

As it is run like this then the sector will be disrupted. I wonder if it will happen before autonomous vehicles are commonplace.

[bickster]

13 minutes ago, limpid said:

As a Taxi Co, your customer is the driver. That's dumb as the money doesn't come from them.

Actually, yes it does. The drivers pay their weekly fee to obtain work from the platform, they can take as much or as little as they like. The money they collect in fares is their money.

 

16 minutes ago, limpid said:

In this structure who is responsible for business development / growth? 

The dispatch company. Growth comes from having more drivers on the platform, recruitment of drivers is what generates growth. As growth occurs, more consumers are satisfied and demand is closer to being met

 

33 minutes ago, limpid said:

or simply employing drivers

5 minutes ago, limpid said:

There must be companies running as co-ops

Glasgow Taxis is one such Co-Op and they are one of the better ones. Drivers actually have competing interests to the interests of the actual dispatch and make up stupid rules that just make them seem insane to the general public.

In my experience, its rare that a driver ever understands what the best interests of the dispatch company are, which ultimately are in the drivers best interests.

Co-ops are notoriously bad

As for emplying drivers, this never works, it has been tried time and time again, it always fails. Not only does it vastly increase costs, the propensity for drivers to not hand over all the cash at the end of a shift is massive and the collection of said money would be a huge cost as it would have to be 24/7 and highly insured. again is another huge cost. Taxis are cheap as a result. Drivers being employed would actually kill the trade. On top of that you'd have a two tier system where the Hackney side of the trade are self employed as many of them don't use intermediaries for bookings at all and the PH side of the trade would be employed and unable to compete, this would essentially push the trade all down the Hackney side of the trade, a one tier system where everyone is self-employed and leaving all decisions in terms of driver numbers in the hands of local authorities as they are the ones who cap driver numbers. That in itself would lead to all the cabs being concentrated in the city centres again and you'd be back to the situation that existed prior to the Miscellaneous Provisions (Local Government) Act of 1976

[ender4]

So difficult to get Uber's or any taxi since the July re-opening.  There just aren't enough taxi drivers, especially in Bham City Centre late night and weekends.

Uber's have become the worst.   It shows a driver 4 mins away, but no-one takes the job for 5 mins.  Then someone takes the job, and they are actually 10 mins away. Then 2 mins later they cancel and the search for a driver happens again and again.   You end up waiting half an hour. 

A2B app slightly better - at least they just tell you straight away the wait is roughly 40-50 mins.

Someone mentioned Bolt is the latest taxi app but i haven't tried them yet.

[tinker]

On 14/08/2021 at 10:53, Davkaus said:

They're a scummy company so I've no doubt they'd get up to some shenanigans if they could, but the funds aren't just legally ringfenced so they "shouldn't", once the monthly pension payment is made it's completely outside of their control.

It might seem nitpicky, but I've spoken to too many people who don't pay into their pension because of horror stories like BHS, when it couldn't possibly happen to DC pensions. The government has actually done quite a good job of ensuring even for DB pensions, employees don't get completely shafted, so I find talk of pension pots being raised quite frustrating, as there are people misinformed into thinking it's still a possibility, it's quite dangerous. I'm sure not many people are taking pensions advice from VT, but I feel compelled to correct this whenever I hear it, we've all got to have a hobby.

Mmmm look at the miners pensions and how the government protected them, disgraceful situation. DB pensions aren't fully protected,  their assets get transferred  to the ppf and they admin it from then on with restricted options for those that hold pensions, 10% reduction in payouts,  no withdrawal and a raft of other restrictions. 

[bickster]

47 minutes ago, ender4 said:

Someone mentioned Bolt is the latest taxi app but i haven't tried them yet

Not sure if Bolt has hit Brum yet tbh

But here's the thing, new rideshare companies won't make a blind bit of difference, in fact it makes the situation worse. none of the rideshare companies stop drivers working multiple platforms at the same time. Nor do they prevent drivers cancelling jobs once they've accepted them. What that leads to is drivers accepting bookings then another App will give them a better offer or even the same App will be showing surges elsewhere, so they cancel you job and go for the higher offer

What you are witnessing is market forces applied to the cab trade and the App companies love it, they'd rather have their cut of a higher fare than lower one, so they allow drivers to recall the jobs once they've accepted them (our company doesn't allow this, nor do most traditional PH companies)

[bickster]

This won't mean much to may people here but a Californian judge just ruled Prop 22 unconstitutional as "it limits the power of a future Legislature to define app-based drivers as workers subject to workers’ compensation law." He also ruled that as Prop 22 also prevents the Legislature from granting collective-bargaining rights to drivers its also unconstitutional because it “appears only to protect the economic interests of the network companies in having a divided, ununionized workforce.”

That's a huge decision and will adversly affect Uber in a massive way. The backstory is that the State of California ruled that "gig-economy" workers should be considered to be effectively employees and that gave them certain rights etc, min wage, pensions, healthcare etc. At the last election the people of California after a huge campaign by Uber, Lyft etc voted in favour of Prop 22 which reversed that decision (and more). That meant Uber wen't full tilt at lowering drivers share of the fare, not just in CA but across the USA.

Uber threatened to pull out of CA completely if Prop 22 wasn't voted in, it has now effectively been ruled null and void so lets see what they do. I can't see them pulling out, it's by far their largest markets and one of the few where they actually make money, though that may not be the case after this ruling. Whatever happens in CA to Uber always has a huge impact on it across the USA and the rest of the World

We'll see if this straw is the final one (personally I doubt it)

[limpid]

10 minutes ago, bickster said:

This won't mean much to may people here but a Californian judge just ruled Prop 22 unconstitutional as "it limits the power of a future Legislature to define app-based drivers as workers subject to workers’ compensation law." He also ruled that as Prop 22 also prevents the Legislature from granting collective-bargaining rights to drivers its also unconstitutional because it “appears only to protect the economic interests of the network companies in having a divided, ununionized workforce.”

That's a huge decision and will adversly affect Uber in a massive way. The backstory is that the State of California ruled that "gig-economy" workers should be considered to be effectively employees and that gave them certain rights etc, min wage, pensions, healthcare etc. At the last election the people of California after a huge campaign by Uber, Lyft etc voted in favour of Prop 22 which reversed that decision (and more). That meant Uber wen't full tilt at lowering drivers share of the fare, not just in CA but across the USA.

Uber threatened to pull out of CA completely if Prop 22 wasn't voted in, it has now effectively been ruled null and void so lets see what they do. I can't see them pulling out, it's by far their largest markets and one of the few where they actually make money, though that may not be the case after this ruling. Whatever happens in CA to Uber always has a huge impact on it across the USA and the rest of the World

We'll see if this straw is the final one (personally I doubt it)

Good to hear. However, the typical UK model of pretending PH drivers are not employees is just as dodgy.