Email to Minister Buswell re: 300 more cabs.
Dear Minister
Are you f. nuts?
Have you actually gone out onto the streets to investigate this statistic? It is so beaten up. Where all these people who are not getting picked up? I would like to know so I can go and pick them up rather than sit around for up to an hour at a time.
Are they at house addresses or shopping centres or street corners? Are they not being picked up by the designated cab because they have already gotten into another cab?
Are they in far flung suburbs where drivers don’t sit because they may not get a job for hours? These jobs are usually covered but it takes longer to get to them because they are far flung suburbs (a problem of our low density lifestyle).
Are they jobs phoned into Black and White who only have 180 cars (less than 1 per suburb)? Are they MPT jobs (sometimes MPTs are not available because they are picking up regular or single passengers as the luck of the draw may have it)?
Are these jobs not being picked up because your department has let a lot of no hopers into the industry who can’t find the address even with gps (a system that often can’t find its way out of a wet paper bag)? I find the Swan gps will often guide me to the wrong place, usually the rear entrance to an older subdivision. I know what I’m doing so I usually find my customer.
Are these jobs in apartment buildings where no apartment number is given so the driver can’t attempt to make contact?
Is this an average statistic blown out of proportion by drunks calling from cab ranks, pub fronts etc during the only real peak period (2.00 am Saturday)?
Have you stood at the intersection of Lake and James in Northbridge on a Friday night and seen how many taxis are empty? Have you wondered through the streets of Perth during any day or early evening and seen the taxis double parked on ranks? Have you been to the casino at any time except for 2.00 am Sunday to see the rank doubled up (even this morning there was a massive queue of cabs waiting for work, 2.30 am Sunday)? Have you seen the 200 taxis lined up at the airport most evenings? Have you seen the Taxis sit out front of the Deen on a Monday or Thursday only to be told by cops we are parked illegally and to move on (this is a rank area but regular cars park on the rank)? Have you seen the 50 taxis sitting in the Hipp-e Club car park Tuesday and Wednesday nights? Have you seen the 10 cabs at the Raffles on a Wednesday night (recently told by security that it is not a rank even through it is marked as one)? Have you at any time sat in Swans and looked at a screen that shows how many cars are logged into the suburbs (often more cars than jobs from last hour)? So where is all this work?
Why do we need 300 more cars to pick up 220 jobs not covered? That means these cars will get less than 1 job a day. Not very profitable. If 40% of work is on Friday and Saturday nights why are you putting Full Time plates out? Why are you not increasing the train services? Surely some of these people would prefer the cheaper option of $3.50 to Joondalup rather than $45.00 in a cab (think of the extra revenue to the rail system).
By what theory of economics do you think that more supply creates more demand? If that were the case why don’t you increase the fleet of taxis to 500,000 (one in every garage, oh they’re called mums)? Many people use the excuse of not being able to catch taxis so they can justify drink driving. Do you understand that many people are also scared of catching taxis (which is reducing demand)? This is because you and the previous government have so dropped the ball when it comes to vetting drivers.
Now when you do release these plates (which I am sure you will) where are they going to go? Are you going to insist that councils provide more Taxi ranks? Are you going to increase the rank at the Airport?
Now for a very relevant point minister to my staying in the industry. You say fares won’t go up to cover this increase in taxi supply. Do you understand how difficult it is to take $400.00 in a shift? Do you understand that when you take $130.00 average costs, $27.00 GST and other costs for benefits such as super, holiday and sickness allowances our 12 hour earnings is less than $200.00.
If you then allow for stand time and a half for overtime 12 hours is equivalent to 14 hours. That means our average income is $14.28 per hour (nights if you make $400 which is difficult even for a seasoned pro, days struggle for $300).
As for your statistic that off peak work not being covered is 1.09 % try the maths again. If 1500 full time cars do 15 jobs per shift that is a total of 45000 per day. 220 is only 0.48%. If they are doing 10 jobs per shift that is 30000 per day. 220 is 0.66 %. If we are doing less than 10 jobs per day business really is bad (less than 1 job an hour) so why exactly do we need more cabs?
As for your statistic saying demand has increased from 2009 to 2010 that just means that 2010 wasn’t as slow as 2009. There were still way too many cabs on the road in 2010. We were still much underutilised. If there was any problem with pick-ups it was because of the idiots you have allowed into the industry. They are inefficient at picking up while we sit on ranks waiting our turn when we could have done that job.
The only reason I can think is the $90 million (or $4.5 million pa for leases) your government is getting and the $1.7 million swans will get for rank fees as well as the training fees of over $1 million for all the new drivers (1002 including the 2 needed to replace me).
Sweet regards.
Hal 3338
