Autogas To Start Trial With Converted Diesel Taxi To New Petrol/Gas In London.

  The Autogas Taxi- cleaner, cheaper solution 

Autogas is shortly to commence a trial in London of a traditional black London taxi running on LPG.

The company, which has the largest network of automotive LPG refuelling pumps in the UK, hopes the cab will be approved by Transport for London for use later this year.

The vehicle, which has had its diesel engine replaced by a petrol engine converted to run on LPG, will be run 24 hours a day in order to speed up the process, which includes a 10,000 mile durability test.

Autogas believes the LPG re-powering solution will prove attractive to black cab owners who want to extend the working life of their vehicle in London rather than invest immediately in a brand-new one.

Paul Oxford, business development manager of Autogas, said: “Not everyone is going to rush out and buy a new vehicle straightaway. If someone is coming up to retirement, for example, why buy a new cab?

“By converting with an approved LPG system they can get another five years of service from the vehicle, as well as dramatically reducing air pollution and making substantial savings on fuel costs."

Currently London imposes an age limit of 15 years on black cabs with diesel engines. In contrast, approved LPG conversions can be exempted and allowed to run for another five years, up to 20 years old.

This provision is important in the run-up to 2018, when all new hackney carriages in London will have to be zero emission capable as part of the city’s drive to reduce air pollution. Taxis which are already licensed won’t be affected.

Birmingham City Council has already backed LPG as an alternative fuel which will help reduce air pollution in the city. Sixty-three of the city’s taxi fleet are being 'repowered' from diesel engines to petrol engines running on autogas LPG.

Initial emission testing at MIllbrook has shown the LPG technology produces 80% fewer NOx emissions compared with a normal diesel powered version, as well as a 99% reduction in sooty particulate matter.

At around 55p a litre, LPG is also cheaper than conventional fuels. Repowering of a taxi costs around £8,000 and takes around three days.

It's surprising that both the new Mayor and former Mayor made no attempt to look at the benifits of LPG in the London a Taxi fleet. Instead they are expecting drivers to invest in an untried technology with suspect health issues to the drivers (and regular users).

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Range Extended Taxis, Are We Being Sold Another Lie By The Greenies? .....by Jim Thomas

TAXI DRIVERS LIVES MATTER

Still no reports from TfL or the Mayors office on the affect of sitting over batteries, strung together, emitting Gamma B radiation, generated by a strong electro magnetic forcefield. 
Does no one care about the health issues of the driver?

Don't forget, people were told asbestos was a perfectly safe substance to build prefabs with after the war, even though they knew full well (from as early as 1920) that it had carcinogenic properties. 

My father's sister and her husband, were housed in just such a prefab by the local council, on Carlton Hill/Marlborough Hill in St Johns Wood just after the war. 

Both died from cancer in the early sixties. 

Not one representative org or union has questioned or investigated driver health issues in connection to this new technology.
No one has questioned the mayor, TfL, LTI or Frazer Nash over this.
This is an untried technology and we Taxi drivers are being used as Guinea pigs.

Gamma B is the radiation used in dentistry to take X-rays of the mouth. 
The dentist and his assistants stand behind a lead shield when fired up to take the X-ray.
Taxi drivers will be expected to sit over this EMF for 6-8-10 hours at a time with absolutely no protection.

We know that in everyday life, we are surrounded by different strength EMF's and there is a small one emitted by normal car batteries. But with a bank of batteries connected together, the force field is magnified producing stronger emmisions. 

Fazer Nash and LTI won't comment on the subject....I wonder why....they are not the ones sitting over this time bomb for extended periods of time.

Why have TfL and the Mayor put all their eggs in the one basket?

Why no exploration of different technologies?

Below are two videos explaining a cheap and safe alternative that would produce almost zero emmisions.

What all the big oil companies don't want you to know how to save 60% on fuel

   

Answers to the many thousands of questions asked since the original video got over 30 Million views in 48 hours. It was shared over 750,000 times. 

In this follow-up video Grant talks to the inventor of my hydrogen conversion system. 

Straight answers directly from the expert himself.

   

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Hailo Takes Fight To Uber With Daimler Deal

Sky News has learnt that Hailo will announce on Tuesday that it is to become part of the Mercedes-Benz-owner's portfolio in an effort to take on Uber, the world's most valuable taxi-hailing app.

Sources said that Hailo, which launched in 2011, had been seeking a strategic investor for some time.

The company's existing investors include some of the technology sector's biggest names, including Accel, Wellington Partners as well as entrepreneurs such as Sir Richard Branson.

Daimler acquired MyTaxi, which claims to be Europe's leading taxi-booking app, in 2014, having bought an initial stake in its owner, Intelligent Apps, two years earlier.

This week's deal will see another tech start-up devoured by a major corporate name operating in its industry, underlining their determination to capture the growth emanating from new distribution models.

Volkswagen, which is reeling from the impact of its US diesel emissions scandal, recently invested $300m in Gett, an Israeli taxi venture.

The terms of the investment in Hailo, including the size of the stake that would continue to be held by external investors, were unclear on Monday.

Hailo, which operates in markets including Ireland, Japan and Spain as well as several British cities, also made an unsuccessful attempt to penetrate the US taxi market.

The company has raised roughly $100m in total since its launch, including most recently from a group of unnamed Asian investors to accelerate its growth.

Uber has continued to raise billions of dollars from investors across the globe even as it has faced regulatory roadblocks in a number of major markets.

Hailo declined to comment on Monday.

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Uber Decide They Don't Need Operator Licence

 The march to global domination of taxi app firm Uber has halted in parts of the North East at least.

After submitting applications to operate in Gatesheadand North Tyneside several months ago, Uber suddenly decided to withdraw their applications.

A Gateshead Council spokeswoman said: “Uber Britannia Ltd applied to the council to be licensed to operate taxis in Gateshead. In June this year, after a number of months of discussion, the company informed us it was withdrawing its application.”

Meanwhile North Tyneside Council said the application was first submitted on October 25, 2015 and it was withdrawn on June 1, 2016.

Neither council would say if the company gave any reason for its withdrawal.

A North Tyneside spokesperson said: “Unfortunately, due to commercial sensitivity, we aren’t able to provide any further detail.”

In April last year, Newcastle became one of 400 cities around the world to give permission to the ride-hailing platform to operate since it was launched in 2010.

This April, Sunderland joined its ranks while we understand an application is also being considered by Northumberland.

Chris Chandler, spokesman for the National Taxi Association in the North East, suggested the applications might have been withdrawn as Uber wasn’t able to meet the criteria laid down for taxi firms operating in those areas.

Mr Chandler, a long term critic of Uber whose operation he describes as “spreading like germs”, said many of its drivers had no local knowledge and would fail any ‘locality tests’ on knowing the patch they are in, known as ‘the knowledge’. Its drivers rely heavily on sat navs.

Newcastle City Council was criticised last year by long established operators after it scrapped the stringent test which demanded cabbies had in depth knowledge of the area they cover, opening the door for Uber to start up there.

Bosses at the city council say the decision to make the changes related to pending Government legislation, and the increased use of satellite navigation systems and app based systems.

To use Uber, passengers download its app on their smartphone which then uses GPS enabled maps to locate them, and they can request a nearby taxi with the press of a button.

The app then provides the taxi driver’s photo, name and car registration and users can watch the taxi approaching via a moving symbol on the map.

Uber spokesman in the North East, Harry Porter, said: “There’s been a lot of noise from a couple of local operators. The simple fact is the applications were withdrawn because we didn’t need the expense.

“We submitted applications in North Tyneside and Gateshead back in 2015. Since then, Uber has grown rapidly and we’ve been really pleased with how popular the service has become throughout the North East.

“We spent many months waiting for our applications to be progressed but our growth was not hampered in the meantime, so we decided there was no need to pursue these any further and instead focus on getting on with serving the region.”

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Taxi And Limousine Commission Vote To Limit Cabbies’ Working Hours

Starting in November, cab drivers will not be allowed to drive for more than 12 hours a day.

The Taxi and Limousine Commission is trying to get drowsy drivers off the road.

On Monday July 18, the TLC voted to pass new rules that limit cab drivers from being on the road more than 12 hours daily and 72 hours weekly. These limits would apply to the more than 140,000 drivers licensed by the TLC, including taxi, limousine, commuter van, black car and Uber drivers.

The rules, which were proposed in May, are aimed at tackling driver fatigue, something the TLC has taken more seriously since an elderly Manhattan woman was fatally struck by a taxi in May 2015. Since then, the TLC has collected research from the Centers for Disease Control, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the National Sleep Foundation and the US Federal Highway Administration, which concluded that driving fatigued is similar to driving under the influence of alcohol.

According to the TLC, the data also revealed that over 2014 and 2015, “the crash rate of taxi drivers working more than 12 hours in a day was 23.8 percent higher than for those who worked 12 or fewer hours in a day. Over the same two-year period, the crash rate of taxi drivers working more than 72 hours in a week was 8.6 percent higher than for those who worked 72 or fewer hours in a week.”

TLC Commissioner Meera Joshi said in a public statement, “The work of TLC-licensed drivers is critical to the movement of the City. To minimize the risk of a crash, drivers must be alert, which requires rest. But these crashes are preventable with a reasonable limit on the hours during which a driver can pick-up passengers. Today’s proposal does that.”

However, the TLC admitted in its proposal that the new rules will only affect a minority of drivers. It stated, “Only a small percentage of drivers ordinarily surpass the new limits; 3 percent typically drive more than 12 hours per day, and less than 7 percent drive for more than 72 hours per week.” The TLC hoped this would calm concerned cab drivers who fear the new rules will cap their earnings.

The BK Reader reached out to the New York Taxi Workers Alliance for comment but it said it will withhold comments until the new rules are implemented in November.

Despite Monday’s vote the TLC’s new rules are subject to change before they go into affect on November 1 as the commission is still figuring out its exact method of enforcement.

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Fatal bus stop crash in Hornchurch

A taxi driver died after crashing into the bus stop in Station Lane, Hornchurch

The suburban taxi driver died and two of his passengers were injured, after crashing into a bus stop.

Police were called to the incident at 12.50am this morning.

The collision happened in Station Lane, Hornchurch, just outside the tube station.

Paramedics were in attendance but the Taxi driver was pronounced dead at the scene.

A male and female passenger were taken to an east London hospital for treatment.

The road was closed off by police shortly after the crash and Hornchurch tube station was shut for a brief period. 

A Metropolitan Police spokesman confirmed that next of kin had been informed and a post mortem examination will be held in due course.

Enquiries continue.

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Taxis 'must be allowed in Oxford Street even after it's pedestrianised'

Taxis must be allowed to continue to access Oxford Street even after it is pedestrianised, the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association has said.

Plans to transform the world famous shopping street into a car-free zone were unveiled by the Mayor of London’s office earlier this month.

City Hall said all vehicles will be banned on a 1.2 mile stretch from Tottenham Court Road to Bond Street Tube station by 2020 to coincide with the launch of Crossrail, the new east to west train line.  

The project is among measures introduced by Mayor Sadiq Khan to tackle London’s air pollution.

But the LTDA said it objects to any restriction on taxis’ access, which would have a detrimental impact on those who require a door-to-door service including wheelchair users and the elderly. 

“We agree with the Mayor that the levels of congestion and the poor air quality on Oxford Street are unsustainable," a spokesman for the LTDA said.

“At last month’s Transport Committee hearing on this issue, there was a general consensus that reducing bus services was the best way to alleviate these problems. We are glad to hear that the Mayor intends to reroute bus services away from Oxford Street. 

“However, it is essential that taxis are allowed to continue to access Oxford Street, as they provide an invaluable service to shoppers and businesses alike, especially those who rely on a door-to-door service, such as wheelchair users, the visually impaired, the elderly, those with luggage and shoppers with young families. 

“Taxis are a fundamental part of the Oxford Street experience for tourists and all new cabs will be emissions-free from next year.” 

Oxford Street’s transformation would be carried out in two stages to minimise disruption with the first phase of construction on the eastern section from Oxford Circus onwards.

City Hall has vowed to work closely with local business and taxi drivers to meet the needs of the elderly and disabled using the busy shopping street.

A Mayor of London spokesman said: “The pedestrianisation of Oxford Street will make this world famous street safer, and improve the air quality for the thousands of people who use it every day. 

“It will be a phased programme of work overall several years, working closely with local businesses, residents and key stakeholders like taxi drivers and groups that represent disabled people. 

“This will include looking carefully at addressing the particular needs of older people and access for wheelchair users.”

• Source : Standard News

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