TfL's £400m Shortfall : Sadiq Khan Shows Consultations Are Waist Of Time.

Transport for London is said to be facing a £400m hole in its budget, as disgruntled passengers increasingly desert Buses and Tubes for an illegal, cheap minicab service, using drivers with virtually no criminal record checks, back by the government. Is TfL a victim of its own corruption?

We've seen Uber driver terrorist attacks, sexual assaults including rapes up 50% last year, road traffic accidents at an alarming level, passenger account details hacked, bogus journeys charged to unsuspecting account holders...but it is supported by the Tories, TfL and the Mayor's office...and of course, it's cheap (sometimes)!

But what price do you put on your personal safety, and that of you family and friends?

TfL tube fares income alone is projected to fall £239m below expectations this financial year, with commercial income - from advertising, retail and property - £160m down, according to confidential documents leaked to the media.

London's overstaffed, congestion causing bus service has been hit hardest and now the Mayor says he will oversee a more compact bus service as increasingly more passengers chose to use an unsafe, illegal instant hail smart phone app, rather than wait for buses stuck in the Khanage of road works and reduced road space caused by cycle lanes. 

The Tube is hit with 20m fewer journeys being made between September and December, bucking the trend of increased travel in the run-up to Christmas. So far this year, Tube passenger numbers are almost four per cent, or 38 million journeys, below target.

Concerns have been mounting that rush-hour Bus service delays and cancellations on the Tube and overground train network have caused tempers to fray, prompting TfL to ask British Transport Police to reinstate "local policing teams".

"There has been a rise in aggression between passengers, pushing and shoving, verbal disputes and threatening behaviour at the busy commuter times when services are at peak capacity," a report to today's (Tuesday's) TfL board said.

The situation seems to be out of control as passengers seem even more willing to risk the dangers of sexual predators and untrained minicab drivers 13,000 without the proper criminal background checks, because of the cheapness due to predator pricing.

Interesting to hear from Mayor Khan on BBC London news last night, when talking about the poor performance of the Bus service, he said 'when Oxford street is pedestrianised'....but to be fair, they was always going to do it, no matter what the public consultation wanted.

Goes to show that these TfL consultations ain't worth the ePaper they are written on!

They are about as important as online petitions.

TAXI LEAKS EXTRA BIT : Other news.

It appears London has already breached its yearly European pollution limit. But this isn't because pollution is unbelievably bad, it's because the level is set so low.

Experts say that even if they removed all the traffic from central London, we would still breach the European limits well before December, with just the ambient fumes from home central heating, industrial discharge, air conditioning, and pollution blown across the channel. 

The more they try to deal with a problem, the murkier it all gets. 

Remember when Boris removed the "older, dirty Taxis", replacing them with new models which gave out higher levels of NO2 and Nox. 

Defra report in 2013 showed ALL emissions strategies in London failed and Mayor Boris' Age limit on Taxis was improper, and based on lies.

Back in 2012, we saw an investigation by a legal team from the RMT Union, who reported back that although the Mayor's age limit itself could be deemed as improper and likely to be illegal. 

The fact that the age limit was offered to the Mayor on behalf of the trade by an unelected drivers group, some of whom have never driven a Taxi as a living, any challenge would be unlikely to be successful.

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Former Uber CLO Salle Yoo Named in Reports of Tool Meant to Evade Foreign Authorities

Former Uber Technologies Inc. chief legal officer Salle Yoo’s name popped up in reports around several of the ride-hailing company’s scandals in 2017, from the controversial ‘Greyball’ program to accusations of legal department missteps around the Uber v. Waymobattle.

Now, just a few weeks into 2018, Yoo, who announced she was leaving the company in September of last year and has since departed, is being tied once again to Uber activity that may be less than savory.

Bloomberg Businessweek reported Thursday that Yoo knew about an Uber tool that allowed the San Francisco-based company to remotely access company-owned devices to change passwords, lock data or shut them down in the case of a police raid. The tool, known internally as “Ripley,” was used at least two dozen times, sources told Bloomberg. Its name reportedly comes from Sigourney Weaver’s “Alien” character who famously says in the film: “Nuke the entire site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”

These sources claim Ripley was used to prevent local authorities in countries outside the United States from accessing information that could be used against Uber in court. In some of these cases, the Bloomberg article said, police had secured warrants to search Uber’s databases.

Yoo reportedly told staff to install encryption services and to log off computers after 60 seconds of inactivity following police raids in Brussels and Paris in early 2015. Bloomberg wrote that Yoo also proposed testing an app that would counter such raids.

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The LCDC, Proactive...Not Reactive, Come And Join The Fight Back.

Are Transport for London (TfL) forcing London taxi drivers to pay an extra half £1 million to the taxman ?

For six months despite a lack of support from any other organisation or union, the LCDC had been asking TFL if Taxi drivers can accept an “instant hiring” via an app when they are located outside of the licensing area.

Why do we want to know this ?

The Answer is simple, TfL’s refusal to answer the question could be costing taxi drivers up to half £1 million overpayment in income tax!

How?

There are hundreds (if not thousands) of taxi drivers that live outside of the TfL/Met area where we are licensed to work (ply for hire).

From a strict HMRC perspective a taxi driver cannot claim for all of the fuel they put into their vehicle as a taxable allowance when completing their end of year tax return, as an example:

If a taxi driver lives in Cambridge, they cannot claim for the portion of fuel (as a taxable allowance) that takes them from their home in Cambridge to London where they are licensed to start work (ply for hire)

But...

If TfL confirms that a taxi driver can accept an instant hiring viral app when they are located outside of their licensing area, then all the taxi driver would need to do ... is come out of their home in Cambridge, switch on an app and be available for instant hiring -The taxi driver is then deemed to have started work and can legally claim their full fuel allowance for travelling to London, as they are available for instant Holinger via the app throughout their commute.

What needs to happen?

Yearly HMRC tax returns are mostly black-and-white, although there is some room for interpretation. The key question HMRC mostly ask when you face the tribunal for wrongly claiming taxable expenses is: is the claim defensible?

The defence.

If TfL confirm in writing that a taxi driver can accept an “instant hire” via an app (just like Uber) when the driver is located outside of the TfL area, then the driver can claim their full fuel allowance as the tax allowance claim is defensible. However if TfL state that the taxi driver cannot except an “instant hire” when they are located outside of the TfL area, then drivers cannot claim the full fuel allowance as a taxable allowance!

If there are 1000 drivers that live 40 miles from London where they are officially licensed to ply for hire (start work) but can now claim for all of the fuel allowance on their tax return, (because TfL confirm that you have a can except an instant hire via an app) then it can be argued that each driver would be allowed to climb about an extra £10 per day as a taxable fuel allowance (80 mile round trip).

Meaning a driver working a five day week and claiming the £10 extra fuel allowance instead of paying income tax on the same £10, would be paying about £480 per year less on income tax.

How have I come to this conclusion?

£10 per day subject to income tax (now claimed as a fuel allowance) times five days of working week, times 48 weeks equals £2400, divided by the 20% income tax rate equals a £480 tax overpayment by every taxi driver living outside of the TfL/Met area.

There seems to be one Chatra for private hire and another for taxi drivers.

Why are TfL refusing to answer the question: “ Can Licensed Taxi Drivers except an instant hiring (ping) via an app when they are located outside of the licensing area ?

Isn’t it about time TfL and the mayor of London Sadiq Khan started answering these questions ?

Chris Johnson on behalf of the LCDC. 

*Tonight Grant Davis will be in Astral Café from 8pm till 10pm taking on new members.* 

Many said they would join if he dumped Gett adverts from The Badge - he did.

LCDC's legal team are top notch.

LCDC's investigative team (Chris, Danny, Mark and co) are directly responsible for TfL's refusal to license Uber.

Directly responsible for the Daily Mail exposé's, Tim Fenton's Zelo Street blogs, Andy Gilligan's Sunday Times articles ridiculing TfL and Uber, DI Neil Bellany's assistance and emails, 99% of TfL FOI's, the proof that Uber's app is P4H that is now assisting in the legal battle against Uber's appeal.

The LCDC are Proactive not Reactive.

The LCDC are no longer going to nod in acceptance, with the other orgs, to everything TfL tells us to do. While the rest posture, the LCDC gets out there and are getting things done!

Give your support to those who are fighting back!

 *Cone among and join the LCDC tonight!*

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ENOUGH IS ENOUGH, You Got Two Choices, Fight Back....Or Die

As the London Taxi Trade lays down dying, the media vultures pick away at our carcass. 

Van driver ploughs into muslim worshippers in Findsbury Park and it's all over the TV and papers for weeks....Uber driver purposely mows down pedestrians in Exhibition Road.....and there's a media blackout!

Third party multinationals like Ford, Shell, VW, Volvo are now queuing up, waiting to take a slice of our everyday business, sucking the blood away from our life forms. Every Tom Dick And Harry has an idea how to procure our livelihood. 

Given the green light by TfL, hop on hope off shuttle from Ford.

BWM’s DriveNow and Daimler’s Car2Go services to join together. 

The press and TV media are of course, in the 'swindle' as are our licensing regulator and even our Prime Minister. How come she can tell Europe to Save Uber, but we can’t talk about it to Mike Brown...how come our orgs in the New a United Trade Group, stood for this???

Everyone seems to have vested interests in pulling down the best, most professional Taxi service in the world. Instead of being proud of our 365 years of excellent service, they continue to force feed fake news into the media for public consumption. Sean Paul Day warned this would happen months ago, did no one take any notice???

   

Sean said:

The Secretary of State and the Department of Transport ignore human rights violations in favour the market.

Whilst the political drive in the USA is forcing Uber to recognise labour rights, and resistance in Europe shows no sign of abating, Transport for London, at the behest of the U.K. Government are ploughing ahead to amend regulations to accommodate Uber in its entirety. 

Uber's history of violations and the protests knows no boundaries. For Uber, no money is bad money! 

Read the who,e of Sean's post here:

https://taxileaks.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/uber-announce-35-billion-investment.html

Let's not forget the way TfL PCO's were used to protect Uber image when an Uber driver got 12 years for rape. PCO's were confiscating copies of the Taxi Magazine left on Taxi rear window shelves.

Let's not forget about the 13,000 fake DBS certificates swept under TfLs dirty carpet for seven months. Even now, only 2,600 have reapplied and the rest are still working on fake documents. Could have major convictions for violence, drug offences and even sexual predators.

No Friends In The National Media:

No mention in the media of the wonderful work done by Mike Hughes and Poppy Cabs, or Dean Thomas with his warm clothing appeal and regular feeding the homeless outside Charing Cross Police Station. 

No mention of the Taxi War veterans charity trips, the Underprivileged Children’s outings, the trips to Disneyland Parish with seriously sick children. 

One seriously rotten apple in our 365 years, its in the headlines for a month. 

This onslaught has been unintentionally supported by our trades weak representation, not helped by continual infighting.... and they wonder why no one's signing on to the Knowledge. 

WHATS HAPPENED TO THE TRADES DUNKIRK SPIRIT???

The time for just getting on with it ...is over

The time for waiting to see what’s gonna happen next week, next month, next year... is over

The time for sitting back and letting others do the fighting... is over.

This wonderful trade of ours is at a crossroads, with two choices:

Forget about our wonderful tradition and 365 years of history....and lay down and die!!!

Or stand together, backs against the wall, and fight.

Diplomacy and good behaviour isn't working 

Enough is enough... It's time to get down and fight dirty.

Make no bones about it...the ITA's five days of demos hit TfL hard in the wallet. 

It couldn't have come at a worst time for them, as they've just announced a massive deficit in their budget.

Let's send them this message:

WE AIN'T GOING DOWN WITHOUT A FIGHT.

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Coming Up In Parliament This Friday 2nd February

Friday 2 Feb see's the second reading of the Licensing of Taxis Safety Bill.

Below is the Bill as it stands at the Moment, it will naturally be amended at later stages.

Click this link to read the Bill.
 http://bit.ly/2GtNgMp

Below is a letter sent to a Taxi driver Member of the LCDC, by the new Transport Secretary Jo Johnson. 

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Have Gett Got It Wrong Again ? Have Their Data System Been Hacked ?

Gett tell their drivers, don't worry about selling out your trade or your hard earned knowledge to a third party... They are going to pay you for it!

Is that what they think our knowledge is worth to us, that it's ok to give it to a third party for a few quid? 

After the news broke about the Mobileye mapping project that will be used to program driverless Uber cars, Gett sent out this notice to a trade org. 

           

We have had some questions about the agreement with Mobileye  about mapping for autonomous vehicles.

This has nothing to do with routing or the knowledge. It is simply about building up more detailed maps of London's roads.

Many vehicles are likely to be offered these mapping boxes including, we imagine, buses, scooters, PHVs , and other fleet vehicles.

As drivers will be paid for having them, it seems sensible to at least have a conversation with Mobileye to make sure some of the revenue from the mapping project could end up in cabdrivers pockets rather than anyone else's.

If it went ahead it would be entirely voluntary of course. We don't have any dates for the project.

TAXI LEAKS EXTRA BIT: 

Have Gett's data systems been hacked?

Drivers on the app are reporting phone calls from a withheld number purporting to be from Gett, asking for bank details. Although they have issued a warning to their drivers, questions need answers as to how Gett driver phone numbers have been acquired!

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Shell Would Like To Thank All Taxi Drivers Working On Foreign 3rd Party Owned Online Apps

Following the announcement that Uber will not its London license renewed by authorities, amid safety concerns, BCG Digital Ventures has announced its own bid to disrupt the city’s transport scene. Fare Pilot will see the BCG subsidiary join forces with energy giants Shell, as the pair aim to provide Britain’s capital with an innovative new travel option.

Uber, the application designed to disrupt the taxi industry, has experienced explosive growth since its inception in 2009. By 2015, the organisation was worth over $50 billion, expanding its operations rapidly into 60 global territories, and 330 cities. 

Unfortunately for the ride hailing app, however, such a level of success is always accompanied by an enhanced level of public scrutiny. In recent years, this has seen the group repeatedly subjected to high-profile investigations into its massive environmental impact, its effects on traffic congestion causing extra pollution, its employment practices and its low health and safety standards.

Now, after Its data and customer account hacking cover up, 50% increase of serious sexual assaults by drivers on passengers including multiple rapes, compounding a harsh couple of months for the ‘unicorn’, in which it forfeited its title as the world’s most valuable start-up to Didi Chuxing, Uber also found itself out of a license in one of its largest European markets. The group’s licence to trade in London will not be renewed by the city’s transport authorities, who said the renewal was denied due to safety concerns. 

Uber lost its licence in September, when Transport for London declared that the company was not “fit and proper” to operate in the capital, and accused it of a series of failures over passenger safety. Uber hopes to win back TfL's approval through a series of talks (follow the money), but in the meantime because TfL never had the backbone to protect public safety, a legal appeal against the ban allows it to continue operating while the process occurs. According to London Mayor Sadiq Khan, the appeal process could stretch out for “a number of years."

While the current loss of licence seems not to have impaired Uber’s potential for business in the immediate future, however, it has opened the market up for competitors capable of differentiating themselves from the allegedly unsafe app. 

Fare Pilot, a new machine learning venture, backed by Shell and BCG Digital Ventures (BCG DV), aims to do exactly that. 

Unfortunately for the traveling public, they will be using the same batch of disgruntled drivers, seen to have acquired PH licenses from TfL by presenting fake criminal record certificates and fake medical passes. They will be using the same bank of drivers who have committed serious sexual assaults including rapes on passengers, pushing up the Mets statistics in London to an all time high.

However, the duo are scaling a Data Platform and Mobile application framed at luring Uber drivers using new techniques in Artificial Technology to anticipate customer demand, (basically plying for hire) utilising live hotspot data to get more fares, by charging the drivers cheaper rates than Uber. 

Fare Pilot already boasts a fleet of active users in the 10s of thousands, having ventured into London, as well as launching in Los Angeles and New York, in preparation for a global rollout.

Licence to drive

Shell has said its already applied for a licence to operate private hire taxis in London through one of its subsidiaries. 

At his point we would like to point out to shell, there are no such thing as private hire Taxis....there app will only be ap,I able to Minicabs. They will not be able, under the PHV act of 1998 to use the word Taxi in any shape or form in their advertising" 

While the group remains the UK’s most valuable brand, Shell have been working constantly to diversify their offering amid flagging demand for fossil fuels. In late 2017, this saw the corporation make a grand entrance into the electrical vehicles market – as Britain’s automotive industry prepares for life after combustion engines in 2040.

The app, which tells drivers where there is high demand for Minicabs, filed an application for a licence with London’s transport authority in July. 

Sources close to Shell have stated the group has no intention of “taking on Uber”, and that the licence was needed for regulatory reasons to allow small-scale pilots, many might say the fact FarePilot’s arrival into London coincides with Uber’s current troubles suggests otherwise. The technology, once it is licenced, will be tested as a business-to-business taxi service (not a good start Shell, you really need to do more research on this, Minicab not Taxi business), rather than one marketed to consumers. However, Shell’s application for a minicab hire licence would leave room for it to go even further by providing a ride-hailing service itself.

According to James Farrar, chair of the private hire driver’s branch of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain, said if the app did take this step, it would have to introduce safety measures to differentiate itself from Uber. Farrar added that employment protections should also be offered, stating, “With a $250 billion oil industry giant now entering the gig economy the urgent need for worker protections in the minicab industry could not be clearer.”

This is not new news as the project, was first announced at the end of 2016. Shell, has a 74% stake, while the remainder is owned by the Boston Consulting Group. 

The digital innovation, incubation and investment wing of BCG, will be working closely with Volkwagen, who have gained valuable experience in the immediate online car hire business, after a $300m investment in the real Taxi app Gett. 

So a big well done to all you Licensed London Taxi drivers signed up and working for foreign third party owned online apps, Shell's new app drivers will owe you debt of gratitude for being their Guinea pigs.

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