For a body of men who have
traditionally been regarded as having a
tongue-in-cheek reputation for being self
styled experts on every subject imaginable,
not surprisingly there are a few isolated
individuals in the cab trade who are not
only keen to dispel that myth, but support
it with vitriol so out of sync with real
life that one wonders if their reading
matter of what’s going in the world is
limited to just page three of The Sun! Also,
I have never quite understood what it is
about people who are elected into positions
of authority that makes them a target from
those whose sole occupation appears to
centre around being constantly
vociferous. It’s been quite
some time since I was this Society’s
regular Aunt Sally, when the most popular
pastime at DaC was "lets have a dig at
Toggers." Admittedly the players
of that little hobby were a relatively small
group, familiar to each other on the Finz
and whilst I was often the subject of their
attention, their satisfaction was I’m
sure, to see their names constantly in
print. Over the years their numbers have
steadily dwindled, either through
retirement, death, changing circuits or the
sudden realisation that there is more to
life than continually knocking the
establishment. However, with nothing being
heard of them for so long they had almost
slipped from my mind, but as with the
remnants of dinosaurs there’s always one
to be found somewhere to give a sudden
reminder of times past…
It was therefore with little surprise when,
having noticed my name mentioned in last
month’s Call Sign, to see the author of
that little missive obviously still active,
as blinkered as ever and regrettably still
likely to remain so. In his
letter to the Editor, HE claims to remember
when you could take a lady to a cinema, on
to dinner and home for a nightcap and get
change from a £1. He then with typical
malevolence, chose to make reference to me
in support of his argument. Exactly where he
went for a £1, how he was dressed and whom
he considered a lady, God knows! But I’m
afraid it wouldn’t have got me very far
when I was a young man, as my tastes then
were no different to what they are now. Top
quality mohair suit, handmade shirt, silk
tie, stick pin, camel overcoat and Chelsea
boots were considered the norm. A white
Armstrong Sidley represented my wheels, a
typical venue was the Tottenham Royal and if
I struck lucky, it would be a meal in Soho
and then on to a drinking club. As for the
£1 - I usually spent that amount keeping my
boots shiny! Obviously reminding
us of his previous life style was not the
main point, he was airing his grievance at
not getting a greater increase in this year’s
taxi fare tariff. However, the fact is that
he chose to compare today with the past, so
perhaps he should have included the state of
the cab trade when he was enjoying himself
on a £1, because up to that period and
beyond, the cab trade didn’t receive an
automatic increase each year as we do now,
they had to fight for it and in many
instances were unsuccessful for up to
several years at a
time.
Equally so, for example, with Board members
pay. There was a period when the Board,
myself included, went four years not just
without an increase, but actually had our
money considerably reduced! We were not
pleased but accepted it because the economy
at that time, the state of the trade and the
state of DaC in particular, dictated it just
as the state of the trade does now. Not that
some would realise it of course, because
from their attitude one would think DaC was
the only taxi supplier in
London. Well for their
information, we’re not. Apart from
Dial-a-Cab, there is also ComCab, DataCab,
Xeta, RTL, Call-a-Cab, 40,000+ private hire
and pedicabs, all competing for a section of
business that has been steadily eroding
since 9.11.2001 and continues to do so.
Read any newspaper - in
addition to the Sun - and not a day goes by
when there is not news of staff redundancies
or business travellers from the USA down by
almost 50%. The tourist
industry is still on the decrease, hotels
continue to trade half-empty, restaurants,
theatres and most tourist related
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businesses are struggling as are the high
street stores, all of which has been recently
exacerbated by the War in Iraq, Sars and in
some instances the Congestion Charge.
Naturally, this is all having a dramatic
effect on the non-radio street work. As for
radio work, as I write I’ve just read in the
business section of our favourite newspaper,
ES, of tens of thousands of feet of office
space being let by two of the largest law
firms in London plus that the axe was falling
amongst traders of several giants in the
financial sector, all of the names being very
familiar to us as traditional big users of
taxis. Added to that, I’ve just heard news
of a very large client issuing memos to all
staff to use cash cabs off the street rather
than on account. None of this is surprising to
any of us at DaC, because for the past two
years at practically every meeting we have had
with our clients and prospective clients, we
are constantly being told of cut- backs being
made and warnings of future cut-backs in
staff, taxi expenditure and taxi
usage. As always, when a company
issues a directive to reduce costs, at the top
of the list there is guaranteed to be a
restriction on the use of taxis or an order to
the facilities managers to dramatically reduce
taxi fares or find a cheaper supplier. The
retention of existing business has always been
considered as an important role in our Sales
and Customer Care department and since 9/11 it
has played a major part in everybody’s daily
agenda. Unfortunately, loyalty and past
service means very little when the managers we
deal with are under orders from their
financial directors to make cut-backs.
In the past ,our biggest
enemy was private hire. Now we the have the
problem of competing against two additional
circuits within our own industry, one, namely
Call-a-Cab - a branch of ComCab – who are
spending considerable sums of money marketing
a taxi service which includes NO run-in and NO
Gratuity! Whether or not
Call-a-Cab is likely to become big enough to
be a direct threat is of little concern to us,
what is concerning is the initial message it
sends to everybody that uses taxis - a message
that says: If these drivers, the same drivers
as ours, driving the same vehicles as ours,
with the same overheads as ours are prepared
to work without a run-in or a gratuity, why
can’t DaC drivers…? Just prior
to the emergence of Call-a-Cab, Mayor Ken
Livingstone was working on a plan, which
involved the public being able to get a cash
or credit card paying taxi service by ringing
just one number that had access to all three
major circuits. With mass advertising
apparently funded by TfL, it could possibly
have been a great success. Now we will never
know all because yet again, the trade and
those within it cannot work
together. In the 16 years I’ve
been associated with Sales at Dial-a-Cab, I’ve
seen far more damage done to the radio taxi
trade from within than from without. Back
stabbing, reneging on promises, collusion,
price wars and predatory tactics between
circuits at management level and
un-cooperation, greed, illogical working
practices and politics at driver level has
prevented the radio circuits from becoming 10
times the size, or as powerful as they should
be today. When I joined DaC 20
years, ago we had 1400 drivers today we have
around 2000 an average increase of 30 a year.
Why? I could list a dozen reasons but if I had
to select just two, they would be
short-sightedness and apathy.
In my last report, I asked for ideas on
what you would be prepared to do to generate
work during quiet periods. I also asked for
suggestions on how you could justify the
additional costs that passengers pay over that
of the meter. I was sincere in my request and
with two subjects high on many of our member’s
minds, namely the acquisition and low
attendance at our AGMs,
I honestly believed I would get a
reasonable response - particularly as both
concern the future of our
Society and both relate to the popular
perception that our members dislike the idea
of changing our co-operative status because
they want to continue to have a control on how
our
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company is run. What ridiculous
nonsense! Our members do not and never have
run the company. It is run by those you elect
to run it - the Board of Management –
however, for the benefit of those who feel
that they are running it, where was the
response to my question? Where were the ideas,
the suggestions and the policies that you as a
collective body, feel would put more bums on
seats? Where was this voice of the members
that I could take to the Board and whose case
I could argue on your behalf? Out of 2000
members, I had exactly 5, to whom incidentally
I would like to take this opportunity of
expressing my thanks to: Russell Hall (G44).
George Wilson (F17). Laurence Kelvin (W88).
Markham Kennedy (R94) and Stanley Roth (Y53).
What surprised me most was the lack of
response from many of those out of the 150 who
attended the AGM who were incensed at the
small turnout and argued it gave them no
platform for a proper debate or to put forward
ideas, proposals, propositions etc etc...
What did we
have instead? We had a member who wrote in,
not with ideas on how to generate
new business, not with cost effective ideas to
encourage people into using taxis instead of
their normal mode of transport, not with ideas
on how to justify the additional costs that we
apply over and above the meter fare, not with
ideas about how to solve the problem of the
numerous complaints we get from clients over
cabs turning up with double the agreed run-ins
or complaints about rude drivers or drivers
ignoring the passengers whilst using their
mobile phones etc, instead we get criticism
about the low fare increase and a demand for
proper fare negotiators "who" - and
I love this bit - "live in the real
world." He then follows by asking a
question, quote: "Please tell me, when is
it ever a good time to put up the
prices?" I would have thought that was
obvious, but evidently not. I would also have
thought it obvious when NOT to put the price
up, but again evidently not.
During my time of being associated with Sales
at DaC, my own personal view has always been
to protect the charges paid to our members ie
waiting time and gratuity, fixed prices etc
and not just the principle of the charges, but
that the members should get the total amount
unlike our competitors, who are known to claw
back a percentage. In addition, that there
should be a statuary gratuity charge of 10% to
every client irrespective of usage. Those of
you who have been on the circuit long enough,
will remember when the gratuity that was
previously 12.5% was reduced to 10%. The
reason for that was because the admin system
we had at the time was peculiar in that it was
built with fixed parameters, in other words
charges such as gratuity were not variable and
every client had to pay either 12.5% or
nothing at all! We only had a couple of senior
accounts and during negotiations to retain the
largest of them, we had to reduce the gratuity
down to 10% or lose it. We agreed, but by
altering the admin system it meant every other
client’s gratuity being reduced as
well. That has been the only
occasion I can think of when payments to our
members have been reduced. Apart from that one
instance, we have always endeavoured to get as
much for our members as possible and giving
them everything to which they are entitled, a
policy that we are proud of and one of the
reasons why we are known as the Gentleman’s
Circuit and why we have always have a long
waiting list of drivers wishing to join. But
putting up costs can only be attempted when
the economic climate and the quality of our
service allows, as was the case for example
when Dial-a-Cab became, and still is, the only
licensed taxi circuit in London to introduce
£8 minimum fares. THAT
IS LIVING IN THE REAL WORLD…!
AllenTogwell
DaC Marketing
allent@dialacab.co.uk
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