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Speaker 1: Yesterday morning, just over twenty four hours ago. It was

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Speaker 1: about ten to ten yesterday morning. I spoke to Joe

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Speaker 1: on the issue of access cabs. And this is what

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Speaker 1: we spoke about.

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Speaker 2: Yesterday.

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Speaker 3: We had the honor of the lady of eighty nine

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Speaker 3: years of age. She was in one of these. She

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Speaker 3: could just picture like a breuge sort of bed that

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Speaker 3: they transport places sitting out of the dirty games or

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Speaker 3: hospitals to go and do their their meditations. Came in

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Speaker 3: to have a birthday party with her daughters, with Jerry

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Speaker 3: and her sisters and that and the short side of

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Speaker 3: the story is that got there late because the excess

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Speaker 3: cab got it there late. The second part was actually

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Speaker 3: the worst one made of. At two o'clock we shut

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Speaker 3: shop and from two o'clock the poor lady waited till

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Speaker 3: eighty six o'clock the afternoon for an access cab.

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Speaker 1: And that is not an uncommon story. And I told

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Speaker 1: you my own story from Sunday where I was at

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Speaker 1: a function and a woman came up and said, I

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Speaker 1: had a cab book for eleven and hasn't he up?

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Speaker 1: And this is now a bit after twelve, And I

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Speaker 1: tried ringing a cab company. She didn't know who she

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Speaker 1: booked it through, so I've rung one and straight on hold.

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Speaker 1: So I've said I'll just get you an uber and

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Speaker 1: booked an uber for it, and it came in two minutes.

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Speaker 1: Two minutes. She'd been waiting just over an hour. And

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Speaker 1: this is the issue CAB's face. If they want to

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Speaker 1: stay relevant, they've got to be on the job. But

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Speaker 1: I think there are a few issues. Were that easy

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Speaker 1: to say, harder to accomplish. But John Trainor, President of

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Speaker 1: the Taxi Council of Essay on the line. John, good morning,

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Speaker 1: thanks for coming on. But the access cab story, if

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Speaker 1: we start with that, an eighty nine year old woman

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Speaker 1: in a barushe like that, waiting for an access cab

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Speaker 1: for four hours, it turns up four hours late after

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Speaker 1: the booking. That's just really poor.

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Speaker 4: Well, it's very hard to defend the indefense of hall.

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Speaker 4: Now I'm not going to try and defend it, so

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Speaker 4: I will just say that the taxis whether they're excess

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Speaker 4: cabs or ordinary cabs, carry one hundreds of thousands of

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Speaker 4: persans a year. And fortunately these bad instances that are

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Speaker 4: only a minority for you, best if they didn't exist,

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Speaker 4: but Hydro had myself fifty years ago. It was a

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Speaker 4: pretty basic system. There was more than just the two

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Speaker 4: taxi companies and Narses. I know they're listed a three,

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Speaker 4: but one of them has taken over one of the others.

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Speaker 4: They're still really only two. But there were a dozen

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Speaker 4: taxi companies there in the nineteen seventies, and you had

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Speaker 4: plenty of competition. And the telephone operators would answer you call,

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Speaker 4: they write down the job on a piece of pavement.

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Speaker 4: They'd all go on to a great, big table. Priority

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Speaker 4: would be given to what we're called PBRs, plane glass

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Speaker 4: or at raal where someone had to urgently match up

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Speaker 4: with some other form of transport. And it seemed to

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Speaker 4: work pretty well. And when the taxi companies didn't have

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Speaker 4: a car in the area, they try and get onto

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Speaker 4: one of the other companies to say, if you've got

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Speaker 4: a car in that area, and that worked well. But

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Speaker 4: it doesn't seem to work like that today. We said,

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Speaker 4: we have computers that they're doing at all, and they

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Speaker 4: put the jobs out for the computer screens, and the

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Speaker 4: taxis about about fifteen minutes or so before they're due,

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Speaker 4: and it's.

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Speaker 2: Just just the way the system works, So you really

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Speaker 2: need to contact the taxi companies themselves to have explained

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Speaker 2: why they can't match the need in the way that

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Speaker 2: you most of the public think they.

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Speaker 4: Should be doing.

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Speaker 1: Is it a lack of drivers?

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Speaker 4: Very much is a lack of drivers. One other thing

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Speaker 4: about those days when I drove taxis or these years ago,

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Speaker 4: the base this system was an owner operator. He would

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Speaker 4: drive the cab half the day himself and they have

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Speaker 4: somebody driver the other half the day. That's when he

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Speaker 4: got a little bit older, he just maintained a plate

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Speaker 4: and have two drivers, one per day, one for night.

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Speaker 4: The engine never got cold. Model now and the engine

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Speaker 4: split the fares fifty to fifty between the operator, owner

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Speaker 4: and the driver. Nowadays, most of them are paying six

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Speaker 4: The drivers are paying six hundred discip one hundred dollars

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Speaker 4: a week in lease, and they kept all once they've

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Speaker 4: earned their six or seven hundred dollars. Anything they earn

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Speaker 4: over that is there. It's a totally different system. But

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Speaker 4: that's very difficult to discipline the drivers too, because then

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Speaker 4: people think that the drivers work in taxi companies, but

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Speaker 4: they don't. The taxi companies just insist as a booking ship.

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Speaker 4: They take phone calls or at or have a messages

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Speaker 4: coming in and then their computers just issue issues them

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Speaker 4: out to drivers who are driving taxis whose owners paying

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Speaker 4: fee to the booking service.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So in the meantime though, I mean you talk

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Speaker 1: about that six seven hundred bucks that's the first half

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Speaker 1: week is not so they're working essentially to pay for

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Speaker 1: having the cabin and running it, and they start making

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Speaker 1: money after Wednesday essentially, that's.

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Speaker 4: Right, And they're not going to work twenty four hours.

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Speaker 4: I mean, so many people sleep, so they'll pick and

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Speaker 4: choose the maws during the day and there's going to

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Speaker 4: be just luckys who were how good their judgment is

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Speaker 4: is picking when there's a peak period when the taxis

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Speaker 4: are most needed. But what you'll find is that when

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Speaker 4: there is the dead times and two o'clock in the

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Speaker 4: morning and so for that is when the taxis become

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Speaker 4: very competitive in price because they already add an extra

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Speaker 4: two or three dollars to a fair for you working

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Speaker 4: in the middle of the night, whereas the uber you

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Speaker 4: can have your your fear doubled or tripled because the

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Speaker 4: fear is set by a computer sitting over somewhere in California.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, although cabbies are trying to be ubers.

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Speaker 1: I also told the story yesterday how a few weeks ago,

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Speaker 1: it's a Friday night, I jumped into a cab in

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Speaker 1: the city to take me within the city, but about

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Speaker 1: a kilometer and a half within the CBD, basically across

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Speaker 1: town one corner of the city to the other corner.

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Speaker 1: And I get any He said where you're going? I

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Speaker 1: told him. He said, well that'll be I forget what.

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Speaker 1: He said twenty dollars and I said, but you've got

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Speaker 1: a meet. You're going to turn it on and we'll

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Speaker 1: see what it is at the end of it. And

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Speaker 1: it came to whatever it came to, fifteen probably, but

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Speaker 1: I thought, nice, try mate. You want to just set

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Speaker 1: a fear you've got a meet to you is and

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Speaker 1: surely setting a fair is illegal like that.

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Speaker 4: Well, a lot of the taxi drivers are also uber

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Speaker 4: drivers as well, and they see what has to square

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Speaker 4: price surging, where you can just whap the price sky high,

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Speaker 4: and so they tried to price surge when they're driving,

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Speaker 4: and unfortunately on some of the ranks. The state government

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Speaker 4: gave us a grant so that we could operate consurgance,

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Speaker 4: particularly outside the casino, and if I an instances for

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Speaker 4: example of drivers who won't take short fears that the

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Speaker 4: turds gets onto them and says that you can't get

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Speaker 4: away with that, mate. But I love the story that

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Speaker 4: one driver told me a couple of weeks ago there

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Speaker 4: have been number four on the grample of the casino

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Speaker 4: and three taxes in a row illegally refused to take

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Speaker 4: somebody around a Franklin street. He took him around there

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Speaker 4: and the guy said, now, would you mind getting my

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Speaker 4: case out of the locker here and the bus station?

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Speaker 4: Can you take me to? Whyala?

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Speaker 1: What's that in a cab fare?

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Speaker 4: Oh? I think it was. It's probably about as nine wow.

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Speaker 4: But on the other side, that's good. Come. My granddaughter

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Speaker 4: who's now in England, got a taxi from outside the

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Speaker 4: casino on North. Heis to a little face that she's

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Speaker 4: in the Nord and it's usually just about eighteen twenty dollars,

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Speaker 4: and being young, she's just looking at her phone all

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Speaker 4: the way and never looked at the meter or anything.

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Speaker 4: Didn't notice that the guy had the league, not even

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Speaker 4: put it on, and he said, that's fifty dollars he said, no,

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Speaker 4: it's not. He said, right, forty dollars. And then my

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Speaker 4: granddaughter said, wait a minute, he come your meets and

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Speaker 4: I was broken. It's broken. He said, well, listen mate,

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Speaker 4: my granddad is the chairman of the Taxi Council and

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Speaker 4: so I know that what you're doing is illegal and

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Speaker 4: it's only about twenty dollars or twenty dollars in.

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Speaker 2: When off and then drove off it do they try

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Speaker 2: it on?

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Speaker 1: Don't they?

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Speaker 4: Fortunately? Did they let the taxi industry down as a

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Speaker 4: whole by doing this?

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, a.

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Speaker 4: Minority, but it's spoils it for everybody.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right as usual, as is the case across

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Speaker 1: the board. But there's no point either in saying, well

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Speaker 1: you're off the road, even though that's what should happen,

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Speaker 1: because ultimately it means there's one less taxi out there.

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Speaker 4: That's right, because such a shortage of the river, which

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Speaker 4: is most unfortunate. But we've we've got our fingers crossed.

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Speaker 4: But Tom Couchtonus is going to come up with a

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Speaker 4: magic solution in the next week or so. It may

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Speaker 4: even have gone to kbinet yesterday.

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Speaker 3: It didn't.

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Speaker 1: Wait, yeah, we've checked it didn't go yesterday, so maybe

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Speaker 1: next week now before cabinets, So it would be at

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Speaker 1: least another week before we know what is in that

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Speaker 1: review and what the what any shakeup might look like.

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Speaker 4: But johnciapologies to anyone whoever does get in convenience that

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Speaker 4: you have a good talk to the two texted companies

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Speaker 4: thirteen cabs in suburban who now owns just see what

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Speaker 4: that system is, because I do think that in some

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Speaker 4: cases they do bypass the computer, particularly whoge in cases

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Speaker 4: that they have been waiting a long time. I'm not

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Speaker 4: quite sure when they like.

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Speaker 1: What about access cabs? Are they booked through those two companies, Well.

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Speaker 4: They're all operated by contract, and at the moment, Suburban

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Speaker 4: Taxis had the contract for all the access cabs. So

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Speaker 4: though there are other taxis that have the capacity to

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Speaker 4: take the vehicles, but they're not necessarily part of that fleet.

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Speaker 1: And if there's a four hour wait, there's obviously not

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Speaker 1: enough access cabs either.

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Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely not. There's a whole lot of issues that

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Speaker 4: are going on at the moment. In one of the example,

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Speaker 4: there's a lot of disagreement about the placement in the

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Speaker 4: access particularly of the screen, because the department has decides

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Speaker 4: that they're no longer allowed to have the screen on

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Speaker 4: the right hand side, which is where ninety percent of

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Speaker 4: the dover has been right handed like it to be,

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Speaker 4: and putting in in the center in the middle of

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Speaker 4: the dashboard where it sticks up a bit, and there

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Speaker 4: you have to take your eyes off the road to

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Speaker 4: look at it every time, which is most unfortunate, but

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Speaker 4: I hope that gets sorted out.

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Speaker 1: So this is the screen as in what they look

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Speaker 1: at for jobs and everything else that they tap into them.

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Speaker 4: That's right. Lugo has their satellite navigation, yeah, and it's

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Speaker 4: it's also for security here and it also has the

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Speaker 4: meet in it, right.

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Speaker 1: Is that why it needs to be in the middle,

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Speaker 1: perhaps so passengers can see it.

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Speaker 4: Well, one of the requirements is to meet should be

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Speaker 4: visible to the front seat passenger. Would do anyone in

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Speaker 4: the back seat without having to lean over too far

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Speaker 4: to see what the meter is saying that it's supposed

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Speaker 4: to go on when you get in the cab. It's

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Speaker 4: illegal to operate without to meet.

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Speaker 1: Them, right, So keep that in mind. If for Kebby

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Speaker 1: wants to negotiate a fear with you when you first

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Speaker 1: get in, tell them to put.

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Speaker 4: The lead on negotiate the fear, but the meat is still.

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Speaker 2: Leicester run right.

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Speaker 1: Okay, interesting, John, thank you for your comments today. I

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Speaker 1: appreciate it.

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Speaker 4: Okay, thank you, Matt, Thank you.

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Speaker 1: John Trainer, President Taxi Council of SA