It's a disgrace that black cabs are allowed the exemptions they currently receive (bus lanes, ULEZ, congestion charge, waiting on double lines etc). They're an incredibly inefficient form of transport used almost exclusively by tourists and the wealthy and the non-PHEV are some of the most polluting vehicles on the road.
The black cab lobby enjoys a disproportionate amount of power when it comes to policy-making on transport. Most Londoners would not miss them if black cabs disappeared overnight but somehow huge allowances are made to ensure they continue to operate the way they do, often at the expense of everyone else.
I recently asked "What would the outcome be of a total taxi ban in a major city" in a similar thread [0]. An interesting answer was the disabled would struggle. I've since discovered Dial-a-Ride [1], which is good to see and now strengthens my convictions against black cabs in London.
For business use alone - public transport just isn’t up to the task without taxis. I know London we’ll for example and can get around for meetings mostly by tube but sometimes a taxi is a must... foreign visitors mainly rely on taxis for meeting appointments
Not disagreeing with your post, but when talking about black cabs and ULEZ we shouldn't forget the historical diesel subsidies:
> The resulting financial incentive for diesel cars helped to prompt a "dash for diesel" after it came into effect in 2001 and was extended in further years. This particularly happened within company car fleets which were responsible for a substantial proportion of new car purchases.
> There are now 12 million diesel cars on Britain's roads, while back in 2000 there were only three million. And in recent years diesels have accounted for around half the new car market, whereas in 2000 only one in seven new cars was a diesel model.
This was a massive 180 by government, which explains some of the exceptions for black cabs.
However, anyone who bought a car after they realised the mistake and repealed it, deserves less sympathy. I wish the ULEZ exception took that into account.
FYI, you can report taxis idling with their engines running to the TfL. I wrote to them last year after regularly seeing waiting taxis idling their engines in front of my workplace, and they wrote back saying it’s unacceptable, and to email them with location, time, registration, and ideally some photo of the taxi.
Although I have seen an improvement in density of taxis idling their engines while waiting, though I now regularly ask normal drivers to turn off their engines when why’re clearly just waiting, often getting angry or hostile reactions.
So many drivers aren’t even aware that they shouldn’t run their engine while parked. At least in most London boroughs idling has become illegal with on-the-spot fines.
Unfortunately the black cab lobby is too powerful for the mayor to do much in my opinion. The slightest change make them go blocking entire streets with their cabs. That's a shame because I still don't understand why they have the privilege to use bus lanes over normal cars.
According to that, max age of a black cab is 15 years. On the plus side, given the age distribution shown, then about 10% of the black cabs will already be 0 emission.
There is already an age limit in place for existing diesel cabs, it is being reduced from 15 to 12 years for earlier models - additionally, TFL will pay up to £10k to delicense caps not built to the latest standards.
Do you have a source for that? Dropping that age limit from 15 to 12 years would obsolete about 20% of the fleet overnight, since the age spread of the cabs is fairly linear.
Really? Myself and most of my friends have never taken a black cab and will never do. We always go for Uber, much cleaner, less expensive and friendly drivers.
I did once. Went less than two miles, and ended up £20 worse off. The other time I tried to use it I got yelled at for getting in it without telling him where I wanted to go.
I do use uber or other private hire in London on occasion - when shifting lots of stuff around, but Black Cabs?
Uber didn't exist 10 years ago, and taxis are still around so clearly Uber hasn't _completely_ wiped them out in that period.
I'm mostly an Uber user now, but even I still end up in a taxi on (very rare) occasions at home and more often when travelling and unable to use Uber or another ridesharing app for some reason.
There's also a decent population of older people who don't use rideshare apps and depend on the taxi system (I write from the perspective of an Australian, not a Londoner, but I'm guessing it may be similar there).
Add to that that then-telephone-only private hire companies are moving to the internet, you're now left with the question of what makes Uber better than another private hire company
Demonstrably false. I have taken an Uber while my friends jumped in a black cab, both going to the exact same destination(because stupidly you cannot order 2 ubers at the same time), and yes, the "base price" for uber was cheaper, but the final bill was a good few quid higher than the black cab.
Which laws? Uber is perfectly legal in the UK, same as Addison Lee. Sure there's lots of complaints from the buggy whip manufacturers, but given their product is
1) Worse to use (standing in the rain with you arm out in the hopes someone will stop, let alone trying to get one on a side street)
2) Based around getting lost (taxi drivers are too arrogant to use technology so will drive into roadworks and traffic jams when modern cars use things like waze or whatever to avoid them)
3) More expensive
4) Less safe (who's driving? Who knows! Lets hope it's not John Worboys)
Given Uber have suppressed investigations into crimes committed by their drivers, point 4 seems overly optimistic.
The fact that Uber hasn't yet broken laws in the UK doesn't make using them more defensible. Would you accept a babysitter that only abused children when on holiday in Thailand?
Undermining unionisation and actively promoting the casualisation of labour in the way they have are to be discouraged whether legal or not.
On the other hand I don't know anyone who does use them.
Uber service is better and cheaper. Why would you ever use a black cab when they're so expensive and often refuse fares or try to scam you by going weird routes?
So you would argue that bus lanes should be HOV lanes - if you have at least 3 people in your car you can use it (although if it's a taxi, minimum would be 4 people)
They are actually hybrids - they have a petrol range extender IIUC
Also, the old terrible diesels still have lots of time left where they are allowed on the road.
Taxis are awful at lining up outside entrances to stations (e.g. kings cross and at pancras) and leave their engines running as they slowly slowly creep forward picking up fares. There are often 20 or 30 diesels basically just idling right outside the main entrance to major stations.
Mentioned this above but taxis are not allowed to idle their engines waiting at taxi stands. You can kindly ask them to turn off their engine (most do without argument).
Or you can also take photographs and report them to the TfL.
As a cyclist, I can tell you that the number of times I see these taxis running on electric only is near zero.
Even if they theoretically get 80 miles of electric only range, and can be plugged in, the reality is the drivers force the engines to run to provide cab heating, avoid downtime while charging, and to avoid wear on the battery.
My guess is in the real world, even excluding manufacturing, these produce more CO2 per mile than the TX4.
Theoretically, even if never plugged in, they should get much better MPG due to the regenerative braking and the ability to always run the combustion engine at the most efficient revs (which for city driving should ~halve fuel consumption alone).
The reality is due to a series of poor design choices, that's rarely the case. Normally due to certifications on the braking system, the regen braking isn't actually hooked up to the brake pedal, so most braking is done with the regular friction brakes. The engine also doesn't normally run at the most efficient RPM because users don't want to hear the sound of the engine revving while they're stationary. Combine that with the fact there are efficiency losses in the battery and electric motors and the added weight of the battery, and you suddenly have a system worse than a regular car.
I've seen these in the Netherlands, nice vehicles. I think a retrofit kit for the old cabs would be nice. Keep the chassis, frame and wheels, swap the engine and tank for a full electric driveline. Given the scale it might be cheaper than new vehicles.
The black cab lobby enjoys a disproportionate amount of power when it comes to policy-making on transport. Most Londoners would not miss them if black cabs disappeared overnight but somehow huge allowances are made to ensure they continue to operate the way they do, often at the expense of everyone else.