Power to the people of Islington, after Caledonian Road Station closure is withdrawn.

              Power to the people of Islington.

It seems TfL have bottled it, after being threatened with legal action.

There always was a simple solution...but as we all know, 

TfL don't do simple solutions.

Gareth Powell, Director of Strategy for London Underground, said: 
“In light of points raised by Islington council, we’re reconsidering how we can refurbish lifts at Caledonian Road safely and with as little disruption as possible for local people. Two public bodies being involved in litigation on this issue would be a waste of public money, which we obviously want to avoid. We’re all in agreement that the lifts need to be refurbished and that when this happens everyone will benefit from a new, more reliable service. We’ll be discussing our plans with Islington to find the best solution.”

This from the Islington Gazette:

Transport for London (TfL) this morning backtracked on plans to shut Caledonian Road Underground Station for eight months.

It comes after huge opposition to the transport authority’s proposal to close it for lift repairs from March.

A petition, launched in October, when the plans were first announced, has reached 7,500 signatures.

And earlier this month, Islington Council launched legal action against TfL, citing impact on disabled people and claiming the station’s two 30-year-old lifts could be repaired one at a time - allowing it to stay open.

TfL withdrew its March closure plans after saying it would be a waste of public money to fight the council’s legal action. It will now work with the council to find a solution.

Nigel Scott, 65, is the man who set up the popular petition. He works for the Shingles Support Society in North Road, near to the Piccadilly line station, and said this morning: “This is fantastic news. What we have always said is that this station is too important to close - both socially and economically. TfL never factored that in.

“The public showed its feeling against this. Islington Council also went for it, and that combination has been too much for TfL. It’s clear they hadn’t thought it through properly, and hadn’t anticipated this level of opposition. I hope they can now work it out.”

Gareth Powell, director of strategy for London Underground, said: “In light of points raised by Islington Council, we’re reconsidering how we can refurbish lifts at Caledonian Road safely and with as little disruption as possible for local people.

“Two public bodies being involved in litigation on this issue would be a waste of public money, which we obviously want to avoid.

“We’re all in agreement that the lifts need to be refurbished and that when this happens everyone will benefit from a new, more reliable service. We’ll be discussing our plans with Islington to find the best solution.”

Islington had accepted TfL’s request to stop the legal action after it offered to pay the council’s legal costs so far.

Cllr Claudia Webbe, executive member for environment and transport, said: “It’s clear that both TfL and the council would much prefer to resolve this dispute amicably, if possible, and we hope that TfL will deliver the improvements the station needs by replacing the lifts one after the other and keeping the station open.”

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Uber Can't Operate Under New Regulation Safeguards In Belfast.

Global minicab operator Uber has said it would have to "re-evaluate its business" in Belfast if new laws on taxi regulation were to be introduced.

Apparently if Uber are forced to work within the framework of the new legislated regulations, their current business model would be unworkable!

The Assembly is considering introducing six new rules for owning and operating taxis (Public/Private) in Northern Ireland.

Among the changes, as a safeguard against passengers being overcharged, will be the introduction of taxi meters and printers in all vehicles, which would be inspected, tested and sealed by Department of the Environment (DoE) officials.

If passed, the measures will come into force in May.

Kieran Harte, general manager for Uber Belfast, said: "Since launching in Belfast just over a month ago, we have been overwhelmed by the reaction of both riders and professional drivers wanting to sign up.

"The new rules, if introduced, would be a huge step backwards and would force us to re-evaluate our business in the city.

"Forcing drivers to install unnecessary technology - like taxi meters and receipt printers - stop the sector creating new jobs and increase prices for consumers."

A spokesman for Belfast Public Taxis said, the fitting of meters and printers would put a complete end to the unfair system of Uber surges. Complaints of passenger having to pay up to 8 times the normal fare, were made over the New Years Eve period.

When asked if the changes would mean Uber, which has only operated in Belfast for a month, would pull out of the market here, Uber's spokesperson added: "We would like to stay, but we would have to make sure we could have a viable business with the new rules."

The new changes will also allow private hire vehicles to ply for trade off the street at certain times - something which they are currently prohibited from doing.

The mobile phone app, available on both Android and iPhones, works on a cashless system - with users signing up with a bank card - charged for each journey automatically on arrival at their destination.

They also receive a picture of their driver, their car and details before its arrival, although ther have been many complaints that the driver who turns up is not the one in the picture.

Drivers, are supposed to be fully licenced but there have been reports of drivers "lending their phones to friends and family. Also there is a question mark over whether Ubers drivers have full hire and reward insurance. 

Uber insist drivers ar not employees but are instead partners, deciding when they want to work, with the operator taking a massive 25% of all their fares.

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Letter To Editor : Response To PH Consultation Question 2... By Will Grozier.

Jim please find below, part of my response to the Private Hire consultation.

PRIVATE HIRE OPERATORS

2. Do you agree with our proposal for a time delay between journey booking and commencement?

No

If you don’t agree, please explain why. :

This proposal will do nothing to re-establish a very necessary differential between taxis and private hire. The situation at present is that there is no appreciable division between taxis and private hire as the taxi trade has effectively been de-regulated by the licensing of Uber who operate an immediate demand service.

In the absence of any current plans for Parliamentary action to re-calibrate the cab industry on a fair and equitable basis this review may be the only opportunity to prevent the taxi trade from being totally subsumed in the Tsunami of Uber expansion.

This un-precendented growth has led to severe congestion at many places in London, Soho and the West End generally suffer from gridlock at times and at other locations such as St Pancras and Victoria stations, amongst many, traffic is impeded by the double parking and illegal stopping that has become the hallmark of the App driven on demand market.

A far more constructive approach would be to limit access to the Congestion Charge Zone only to PHV drivers engaged in taking passengers into the Zone or those allocated a booking to pick up. This restriction should apply 24/7 as a 30 fold plus and rising increase in PHV movements in the CCZ cannot be sustained without gridlock of third world proportions becoming a daily ( and nightly ) occurence.

Empty PHV's should be obliged to leave the CCZ and park in an adjacent Zone.

For the purposes of this example I will use the existing Underground Zoning areas although this might not be wholly appropriate if further consideration is given to a plan which might be called 'Concentric Displacement'.

In this model drivers parked in Zone 1 but outside the Congestion Charge area could be allocated a job in the CC area or in Zone 2 but not in Zone 1. Similarly drivers parked in Zone 2 would qualify for work generated in Zone 1 inc the CC area and Zone 3 and so on.

An alternative to this would be the creation of an individual 'exclusion zone' around each vehicle in which no job could be allocated, what that radius that might be is a subject for further consideration but overall this measure would prevent opportunistic positioning by drivers as noted above, loitering around known hotspots and creating unnecessary congestion and curb the behavior of the public to wave an illuminated smartphone at traffic and then engage in the ordering process with the first driver to stop.

This would prevent the tendency of PHV drivers to congregate or cluster close to where work is known to originate - in the case of Heathrow the area could modeled on the Local Journey return area as presently applied to taxi hirings from the ranks, roughly an area bounded by the M25, A3, NCR & A40 although a somewhat smaller zone might be appropriate

More centrally the writer has experienced considerable difficulty removing Uber cars from taxi ranks, the Shepherds Bush Taxi Rank at night it has become an ongoing problem.

In the proposal the concern that would be passengers might be 'unecessarily inconvenienced' is mention twice in a short text. There is no need for anyone to be inconvenienced by this solution - if an immediate service is required then a licensed taxi becomes the default service to access. If an alternative is sought then the customer has the option to prebook a car for a specific time or wait for the response time advised by the operator.

A booking would be allocated to the driver in the form of a pickup location but with no other detail, once in position the name and contact details would be revealed at the booked time and similarly the vehicle registration number and driver contact information released to the passenger.

In addition drivers must be stationary when being allocated a booking as the current practice of drivers being distracted by their mobile phone whilst moving is unsafe and has surely been the trigger for the many accidents involving Uber Prius vehicles, indeed TfL's own PR Dept has issued warnings to motorists of the perils of such action.

A time delay whether it be 5 or 15mins will be perceived as a clumsy and partisan measure by TfL to obstruct Uber. 

A far more elegant solution would be to impose the above measures on the wholly justifiable grounds of combatting unacceptable levels of congestion in the CCZ and the prevention of unacceptable clustering around points of known demand in other places.- that the necessary time delay needed by the licensed taxi sector to re-establish some significant differential arises as a by-product of this instrument is a fortunate serendipity.

Summary;

1)  No PHV's allowed in CCZ 24/7 unless POB, empty PHV's in the CCZ will be unable to accept hirings until outside zone.

2)  PHV's not to be allocated work whilst moving.

3)  Individual 'exclusion zone' or 'proximity buffer' to prevent access to hirings within sight of the driver to prevent opportunistic plying for hire.

4)  All above requirements to be driven by App modification, solution should be self policing.

 The current Alice in Wonderland environment where a 'booking' is legerdemain for an immediate hiring and a 'Meter' is not a Meter needs to be returned to reality. 

Private Hire is or should be a 'Private' contractual arrangement between 2 parties whereby a service is provided for an agreed price.

A price should be quoted on the basis of the shortest map route and take into account traffic loadings as currently available on App driven mapping.

This would be binding on the driver and at a stroke prevent the abuse we have all seen of Uber drivers taking wildly circuitous routes and charging outrageous fares to the dismay of deceived passengers who then have no resort to effective complaint.

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Taxi Regulator Responds Over Cab Company Bankruptcy

San Francisco’s largest taxi company (Yellow Cabs) may soon declare bankruptcy. 

Yellow Cab Co-Op’s financial move has set off alarms across the industry, The City’s taxi regulator is finally weighing in. 

Kate Toran is head of taxi services at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, which regulates cabs in San Francisco. 

Firstly she said, she wanted to clarify that Yellow Cab’s bankruptcy is a Chapter 11, which is a restructuring to shed debts, but not necessarily to close. It had been initially reported that the company would close, as many news outlets reporting the story implied Yellow Cab was “doomed.”

Although many customers have moved over to ride-sharing App's such as Uber and Lyft, according to Toran there’s still a demand for taxi service in San Francisco, countering assertions in the national news. 

When asked for numbers to demonstrate that, she said Uber and Lyft historically do not share numbers in a public fashion with their regulators, the California Public Utilities Commission. Without a point of comparison, she said, people may make mistaken conclusions about the taxi industry’s health.

“Information they provide is under seal,” Toran said, of Uber and Lyft. 

If a taxi company were to close, Toran said one concern for the SFMTA would be ensuring taxi medallion holders transfer those medallions elsewhere. A medallion is a license to operate for a cab driver, some of which are sold by the SFMTA to cabbies for $250,000.

“The main concern is making sure those medallion holders are placed at other companies, Toran said. 

Also, she said preserving drivers’ records to an entity where they could be accessed would be another priority, after a taxi company closes. Among these records would be waybills, which are taxi drivers’ work history often used when trying to purchase or transfer a medallion. 

Toran said “it's also important to point out the taxi industry is trying to innovate and the Flywheel app is an example of that. The app works similarly to Uber and Lyft, but for taxis".

“It’s a game changer in a lot of ways,” she said.

Flywheel’s strength lies in combining the might of the entire taxi industry under one app, she said. Some taxi apps, by contrast, only hail cabs from one particular cab company. YoTaxi, for instance, only works with Yellow Cab. 

“My perspective,” she said, is “another thing the industry should do is stop being fragmented, shifting from each company focusing on its self-interest to taxis as a whole.”

That, she said, is the way for taxis to innovate in the new tech age

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The Time Has Come For Every Taxi Driver To Step Forward And Show Support For Your Trades Future.

   

As you may have heard "Action For Cabbies" has been set up by #SaveTaxi to raise awareness and funds for the campaign to seek a Judicial Review against TFL to have Ubers operating licence in London revoked. 

You have been given the voice to be heard and now we need each and every one of you to support this campaign and contribute financially to make this work. 

The time for talk is over - the time for action is NOW. 

Yes times are hard for us all, but this may be our only chance to properly fight this, so grab it with both hands, it's now or never!! 
Here is the link to make your donation 

>CLICK HERE<

It's your future, and it's now in your hands

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Rickshaw rider JAILED as Westminster cracks down on ‘anti-social menace’.

Juris Briedis has been sentenced to six months in prison for riding a pedicab in Westminster (Photo: Metropolitan Police)

A rickshaw or ‘pedicab’ rider has been sentenced to 24 weeks in prison after he breached a Criminal Behaviour Order (CBO) which had banned him from riding a rickshaw in Westminster just three days earlier. 

Juris Briedis, of Edgware Road, had been given the CBO on Thursday January 7 after he broke a Community Protection Notice that forbade him from using his pedicab in an antisocial way. 

But on Sunday January 10, just three days later, he was spotted riding a pedicab in Bird Street, so found himself in Westminster Magistrates’ Court yet again on Tuesday - where he was jailed. 

However, the 21-year-old rickshaw rider is not alone in persistent antisocial behaviour whilst on the job. When he was given the CBO banning him from riding a pedicab in W1, SW1, W2 and WC2 for five years, so were four others: 

Elvis Bergins, 21, and Elviss Krauklis, 23, both also from Edgware Road, Kristaps Lapins, 21, of Wells House Road, NW10, and Ivo Laskivs, 25, of Clarendon Court, NW2. 

To date, 116 pedicab riders have been summonsed to court for parking their rickshaws in a way that causes an obstruction - and police and TfL say the crackdown is working. 

Inspector Guy Ellwood, of the Met’s Oxford Street, Regent Street and Bond Street team, said: “This should send a clear message to riders who persistently engage in disruptive, criminal and anti-social activity will face significant consequences.”

Steve Burton, TfL’s Director of Enforcement and On-Street Operations, said: “We work closely with the police and officers from Westminster to stop Pedicabs from being an anti-social menace in central London, so this sentencing is welcome news. 

“We will continue to support the officers on the ground, and push for the toughest penalties, while continuing to lobby Government over the legislation of pedicabs in the capital.”

Source: LDN24 Zoah.Hedges-Stocks

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Cabbie's Wife's Showing Trade Orgs The Way To Go.

A campaign group set up by the wife of a taxi driver will this week mount a bid to force Transport for London (TfL) to put the brakes on Uber, the app which has recruited thousands of drivers and attracted a multibillion pound valuation.

Sky News can reveal that Artemis Mercer, who started a Facebook group last year in support of London's taxi trade, will launch a crowdfunding drive to raise £600,000 to fund the initial phase of a judicial review against TfL.

The move will come amid a fierce debate about the breakneck growth of minicab and other ride-sharing apps in London and elsewhere, with Uber facing an array of regulatory measures to restrict its operations.

Mrs Mercer has established Action for Cabbies as a private company to spearhead the campaign, which will use the platform Crowdfunder.co.uk.

The group wants to secure a judicial review on the grounds that TfL was wrong to grant a licence to Uber and its drivers in 2012, because it failed to follow correct procedures.

"There has always been a two-tier system with private hire vehicles on one side and black cabs on the other," Mrs Mercer told Sky News.

"TfL did not follow those regulations in 2012: it went from being a law-enforcer to a law-maker," she said.

"In doing so, it compromised public safety and cost black cabbies the opportunity to compete on a level playing field."

Action for Cabbies will repeat the widely deployed argument that Uber's drivers use a meter of the kind which should only be available to drivers of black cabs, while complaining that the app does not implement insurance and public safety standards as rigorously as those imposed on black taxis.

The crowdfunding campaign, which will launch on Monday, will target London’s roughly 25,000 licensed black cab drivers to raise the required money, with further finances expected to be required if Action for Cabbies is successful in securing a judicial review.

It will also be open to others who wish to contribute, although it will be unlike many crowdfunding efforts in that there is no prospect of a direct return on the funds invested.

TfL is itself proposing a series of new rules that would curb private taxi-hailing groups, such as forcing drivers to wait five minutes before picking up a customer and providing fixed fares at the beginning of each journey.

Those plans sparked a critical response from business groups including the Institute of Directors, as well as – unusually – the Competition and Markets Authority, the chief executive of which said that TfL would "artificially restrict competition".

In the promotional material for its crowdfunding campaign, Action for Cabbies will warn that unless TfL's decision to grant Uber a licence is revoked, the "black taxi industry will be decimated and the iconic black taxi [rendered] extinct".

Source : Sky News.

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