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As a single car, self employed chauffeur of 10 years in the industry I’m concerned about who is shouting specifically for the chauffeur trade and the one man band like me in this impending change to the rules around cross boarder hiring.
I can see the arguments on both sides around passenger safety and vehicle compliance and when you are a local cab firm having out of area app drivers encroaching on your territory with inferior and potentially uninsured vehicles it must be majorly frustrating. Unfortunately the market at that level of service seemingly experiences these situations regularly when I read the trade press.
However, in my experience providing the level and quality of service I do if I were to have my pick up (PU)and/or drop off (DO)addresses restricted to having to either PU or DO or both locations only in my licence area (I have a full operators licence) it would put me out of business. As I’m sure people are aware the chauffeur trade clientele can be spread far and wide. The business model I run is purely (out of choice) a sub contracting model and I have consistently worked for a handful of operators driving their clients up and down the country with the PU/DO locations spread throughout the UK. As a client base they are very mobile and not always working/staying at their home/work address. I do not believe the suggestion of the ABBA process will suffice as often the start and stop addresses are still not in my council area.
Please don’t think I am trying to make out chauffeur levels or service are superior to your average Prius driver working in the London area as that is not my intention. But how do we get across the nuances of the Chauffeur Private Hire sector versus the regular Cab level Private Hire picking up around the corner from their base part of the PH sector? I feel with the changes also to the structure of local councils which could mean that my local council licensing team may be merged with a neighbouring one means yet again more change in terms of the license requirements. There is going to be so much turbulence in the near future it will make it very hard to run a business.
How can we ensure the Chauffeur sector specifically will not be ignored and swallowed up in the big scheme of things when these changes come in to effect?
We have a very good chauffeur and executive committee. They raise specific chauffeur & executive issues. Much of what you refer to is heresay, usually in the Taxi (hackney) press. The LPHCA represent all 3 genres Minicab, Chauffeur & Executive and Special Needs transport with committees and groups.
Most recently we took two Chauffeur and Executive reps to meet the Transport Minister to successfully hear their views. Once again, as happened previously, we got rid of the ABBA proposal and did much more. We are not anticipating any changes to cross-border rules, due to the work we have done.
We look after our small members in the same way as larger members
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