Wheelchair taxis - silly money?

LimeLight

CKhalvashi wrote: »

It's illegal to discriminate on the basis of needing a WAV.

If there are less than 4 people in one of ours, it goes on rate 1.*
If there are more than 4 people, it goes on rate 2*

Simple as!

CK

* = Journeys Monday to Saturday between 6am and 10pm

If it's before 11pm then it's Trap 1, and after 11pm it's Trap 2, Bank holidays are Trap 3.

Whether you have one person in the cab or 5 people in the cab. Or 6 in the cases of the E7's that have appeared in the city.

CKhalvashi

LimeLight wrote: »

If it's before 11pm then it's Trap 1, and after 11pm it's Trap 2, Bank holidays are Trap 3.

Whether you have one person in the cab or 5 people in the cab. Or 6 in the cases of the E7's that have appeared in the city.

We run a fleet mainly comprised of Mondeos, S-Maxes and Galaxies, of which about 90% of our cars (and 100% of our company-owned cars) have come off of the fleet of our other company, with independent drivers buying the remainder), and only have 2 WAV's on the fleet; a Vivaro and a London-style taxi, both driver-owned and the drivers pay us £100/wk to run their own car.

I've thrown drivers off our circuit for less than overcharging before now (we run a yellow/red card and 6-monthly mystery shopping exercise), so it's a case of ensuring that customer service is there. If you don't overcharge, customers will come back!

CK

antrobus

elsien wrote: »

.... And who sets the rates - is it the local council as with ordinary taxis?..

Local councils have powers to set taxi fares, but they don't not have power to regulate the fares of private hire vehicles. As far as the DDA is concerned the DoT have a page here - http://www.dft.gov.uk/topics/access/taxis-and-private-hire-vehicles - that seems to deal with the issue.

It states "Although transport services are currently exempt from the provisions in Part 3 of the DDA, that exemption will be lifted by future legislation. When those changes are in place, where it is possible for a disabled person to use a private hire vehicle (or taxi), the driver would, for example, be required to take them without additional charge unless he could justify that such action was unreasonable. "

The implication would be that until the future legislation is passed, it is perfectly legal for a "private hire vehicle (or taxi)" to levy an "additional charge" for a "disabled person" even where that "action was unreasonable"

LimeLight

CKhalvashi wrote: »

We run a fleet mainly comprised of Mondeos, S-Maxes and Galaxies, of which about 90% of our cars (and 100% of our company-owned cars) have come off of the fleet of our other company, with independent drivers buying the remainder), and only have 2 WAV's on the fleet; a Vivaro and a London-style taxi, both driver-owned and the drivers pay us £100/wk to run their own car.

I've thrown drivers off our circuit for less than overcharging before now (we run a yellow/red card and 6-monthly mystery shopping exercise), so it's a case of ensuring that customer service is there. If you don't overcharge, customers will come back!

CK

Our "hail and ride" vehicles tend to be TX 1-4's, a couple of Fareways, the odd couple of Metro's and now the E7's.

PH tend to use whatever the drivers have. Some have the odd people carrier, but mainly 4-door saloon cars.

GlasweJen

My dad drives a euro-bus, his fare chart from NL council definitely states WAV/5+ passengers on it.