City Council

Latest council enterprise, the taxi

By The Basa ⋅ November 12, 2006 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

Whilst the regulator of the taxi market, the council has decided to use it’s envious position to again abuse their power by now starting up their own taxi company.

Probably taking a leaf out of the incredibly dodgy former labour councillor who defected to SNP, Steve Cardownie, who has his own taxi firm, the labour councillors are trying a piece of oneupmanship by using thier company Lothian Buses to take business from him for having the gall to defect.

A fleet of seven-seater coaches will operate the service which will take passengers between the airport and the city centre and some surrounding areas.

Lothian Buses has invested in a fleet of nine seven-seater coaches for service, which will operate as a private subsidiary of the council-owned firm.

Whilst the council restricts the amount of taxis that can operate on the city’s streets by saying that there is no unmet demand, they come in themselves come in with a taxibus service for the airport.  Taxi drivers are said to be furious. 

Although the council refuse to allow Private Hire cars to be hailed in the street have of course allowed their own “shuttle” service to be flagged down which is a huge conflict of interest is it not?

What is strange is that although this company has been set up by the council, has obviously had a hiring strategy and purchasing strategy by buying the fleet, the business case which brought this into being hasn’t get managed to give us a fare yet and it is being started in about a month.  At present they say it will be somewhere between the £18 average taxi trip to the airport and the £3 bus fare. 

Either that is a very, very bad business plan or the council just expect to change the fare to ensure that they put as many taxis out of business as possible before increasing their fleet and taking over the city.

Conflict, Conflict ,Conflict of interest!

More Info:  Door-to-door airport shuttle service is ready for take-off

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