How would you "update" the way the Taxi industry works?

[Hemi300c]

Enforce law and order and not be scared to enforce taxi's to obey the law.
Higher fines because of them being public transport operators.
Enforce roadworthy every 6mths
Crush vehicles not complying
Enforce eye tests on taxi drivers every 6mths (see how many taxi drivers you see wearing glasses)
Speed limits of 10km less than indicated

 

[Spotja]

I wouldn't even try it. Any 'update' will be met with a nationwide strike by taxi drivers. Ask your boss about that.....

 

[krycor]

How would you "update" the way the Taxi industry works?

Simple! Remove cash from the system and enforce salary.

Drivers generally drive fast, break road rules etc all because they want to carry as many passengers for the day as possible. They basically have a quota to pay taxi owner per route/taxi and usually pocket excess or part there of. Obviously this is where tax avoidance comes in as the entire system under reports income to pocket money that really should be going to gov & RAF.

Government needs to force a cashless system I these guys and make cash paid on transit illegal. Then, they won't do this but, need to ensure that 50% of taxi tax revenue goes directly to RAF as they are the cause of most accidents and also force minimum 3rd party insurance cover.

By making the taxi owners part of such a cashless system, it forces indirectly tax compliance and since drivers then become employees with salaries unions come in too haha. Road rule compliance takes care of itself as there is now formal employment, so prdp becomes mandatory or else owner gets nailed (he draws cash from sales), and salary is tied, bonus can be made I guess as incentives but driver no longer can pocket infinite funds as present. You'd be surprised how much these okes make weekly considering they have zero degree/diploma/formal skills

All in all.. The point is simple, gov can only fix the system if they have the taxi owners by the balls, ie the cash/funds flow. Will they do it? No.. The gov knows too well that there would be havoc as a result hence they have been pushing city initiatives to indirectly push taxi system out

 

[krycor]

Btw Cashless taxi system has been proposed and even made a few times by companies but Taxi owners refuse as, as much as they lose from drivers skimming funds.. Revenue lost to tax would be a lot more than they prepared to lose.

So an unauditable system works better for them.

 

[Necropolis]

Simple! Remove cash from the system and enforce salary.
/snip

There will be riots - and dead bodies aplenty.

 

[Sinbad]

The lawless needs to be crushed ruthlessly. It's absolutely unacceptable that a cartel of gangsters holds the government and law enforcement (and the public) to ransom like this.

 

[Necropolis]

The lawless needs to be crushed ruthlessly. It's absolutely unacceptable that a cartel of gangsters holds the government and law enforcement (and the public) to ransom like this.

Not much can be done when the government are basically a cartel of gangsters themselves.

 

[ice_cubes]

Cashless system will not work because they are not owned by one person - like bus companies eg. And taxis from the same area do not travel the same mileage.

I'll give you a practical example:
I am in Pretoria & want to travel to Alexandra.

A taxi from Soshanguve to Pretoria falls under SOTOA taxi association (think vodacom)..from PTA town to Alex, the taxi falls under ATA taxi association (think MTN).

If you force me to buy a card , does this mean I must buy 2 x cards? one for SOTOA and another for ATA?

lets say I get to Alex and decide I want to make a quick trip to Sandton city... those taxis fall under ARMSTA taxi association (think cellc). Which means I must now buy a 3rd card if I want to get to Sandton?

lets say the system somehow works.
How do they now share the profits at the end of the day?

At the taxi rank, some taxis stand in a queue 2 transport people from taxirank & back home...and other taxis *float* ie, they drive around looking for passengers in the streets. The guy who drives around spends more on petrol & also makes more money because not all passengers can get to a taxi rank in order to catch a taxi home, while other passengers just want to get from point A to point B (which is nowhere near any taxi rank).
How do they now split the income at the end of the month?

 

[ice_cubes]

Do any of you remember the taxi recapitialisation programme?
Do you remember how much trouble there was with that?

Its still operational. Now they have *opening & closing dates*. When they open, you can bring your taxi to be crushed & you get R50k cash. The only requirement is the taxi must be moveable & all the seats must be there.

So you get people taking the good parts out of their existing taxis & putting broken seats & old engines & old rusty doors - they tow the taxi to the yard & once they are at the gate they start the taxi...as long as the taxi can move from the gate & onto the scale (about 20meters) -it passes the *test* and gets crushed = owner gets 50k to deposit on a new taxi.

 

[Pho3nix]

Simple! Remove cash from the system and enforce salary.

Drivers generally drive fast, break road rules etc all because they want to carry as many passengers for the day as possible. They basically have a quota to pay taxi owner per route/taxi and usually pocket excess or part there of. Obviously this is where tax avoidance comes in as the entire system under reports income to pocket money that really should be going to gov & RAF.

Government needs to force a cashless system I these guys and make cash paid on transit illegal. Then, they won't do this but, need to ensure that 50% of taxi tax revenue goes directly to RAF as they are the cause of most accidents and also force minimum 3rd party insurance cover.

By making the taxi owners part of such a cashless system, it forces indirectly tax compliance and since drivers then become employees with salaries unions come in too haha. Road rule compliance takes care of itself as there is now formal employment, so prdp becomes mandatory or else owner gets nailed (he draws cash from sales), and salary is tied, bonus can be made I guess as incentives but driver no longer can pocket infinite funds as present. You'd be surprised how much these okes make weekly considering they have zero degree/diploma/formal skills

All in all.. The point is simple, gov can only fix the system if they have the taxi owners by the balls, ie the cash/funds flow. Will they do it? No.. The gov knows too well that there would be havoc as a result hence they have been pushing city initiatives to indirectly push taxi system out

Salary is a strong word. Commission based income would be a better idea but because of the tax impact, not likely.

Cashless system will not work because they are not owned by one person - like bus companies eg. And taxis from the same area do not travel the same mileage.

I'll give you a practical example:
I am in Pretoria & want to travel to Alexandra.

A taxi from Soshanguve to Pretoria falls under SOTOA taxi association (think vodacom)..from PTA town to Alex, the taxi falls under ATA taxi association (think MTN).

If you force me to buy a card , does this mean I must buy 2 x cards? one for SOTOA and another for ATA?

lets say I get to Alex and decide I want to make a quick trip to Sandton city... those taxis fall under ARMSTA taxi association (think cellc). Which means I must now buy a 3rd card if I want to get to Sandton?

lets say the system somehow works.
How do they now share the profits at the end of the day?

At the taxi rank, some taxis stand in a queue 2 transport people from taxirank & back home...and other taxis *float* ie, they drive around looking for passengers in the streets. The guy who drives around spends more on petrol & also makes more money because not all passengers can get to a taxi rank in order to catch a taxi home, while other passengers just want to get from point A to point B (which is nowhere near any taxi rank).
How do they now split the income at the end of the month?

So in a nutshell.. 1 card. Funds bought from 1 kiosk.
Money withdrawal-able from the same kiosk by the driver/owner.

I do get what you mean though. People will use what works and what the drivers endorse, so the system would need buy-in from the associations with some perks in the initial stages to even get off the ground.

Thoughts?

 

[Sonic2k]

We tried the cashless route, using NFC cards and various other stuff I cannot talk about here...
Resistance was high... And we even tried it up north...

 

[Sinbad]

Salary is a strong word. Commission based income would be a better idea but because of the tax impact, not likely.


So in a nutshell.. 1 card. Funds bought from 1 kiosk.
Money withdrawal-able from the same kiosk by the driver/owner.

I do get what you mean though. People will use what works and what the drivers endorse, so the system would need buy-in from the associations with some perks in the initial stages to even get off the ground.

Thoughts?

Needs to be an integrated public transport system with contactless card payments. Think Oyster in london - the card gets you on trains, tubes and buses. Load up your vumazuma card and swipe it on whichever taxi you get on. Records sent via GPRS to central place which makes payments to the operator.

 

[Sonic2k]

Needs to be an integrated public transport system with contactless card payments. Think Oyster in london - the card gets you on trains, tubes and buses. Load up your vumazuma card and swipe it on whichever taxi you get on. Records sent via GPRS to central place which makes payments to the operator.

We did that, I did all the electronics for it... it was doomed from the start, the taxi operators and bosses were not having any of it...

 

[Pho3nix]

The lawless needs to be crushed ruthlessly. It's absolutely unacceptable that a cartel of gangsters holds the government and law enforcement (and the public) to ransom like this.

There is lawless-ness in the general public as well.
Don't really think the issue is with government in this regard but rather the maturity of law enforcement in the country.

 

[AstroTurf]

As title.
No it isn't an assignment.

Was thinking about this while stuck in traffic on Bree street.
The entire process is manual and it's that way because I am assuming, tax free and very easy to find out if someone is skimming from the top.

Adding tech would add a overhead to both the drivers and industry.

Thoughts?

1. I would put a gps into the taxis as they do with trucks (monitor speeding and location).
2. I would get rid of Commission completely. Make it illegal. Drivers get a fixed rate and pay their own fines.
3. Cheapish Dashcam looking at road and passengers.

1 and 3 to be bought or rented by the driver and will be mandatory (to prevent drivers "accidentally" breaking them).

And that's it.

 

[Pho3nix]

Needs to be an integrated public transport system with contactless card payments. Think Oyster in london - the card gets you on trains, tubes and buses. Load up your vumazuma card and swipe it on whichever taxi you get on. Records sent via GPRS to central place which makes payments to the operator.

System like this would need to be sorted in the Bus and Taxi industry first tbh. Buy in from consumers first would pressure the industry,

 

[Sonic2k]

1. I would put a gps into the taxis as they do with trucks (monitor speeding and location).
2. I would get rid of Commission completely. Make it illegal. Drivers get a fixed rate and pay their own fines.
3. Cheapish Dashcam looking at road and passengers.

1 and 3 to be bought or rented by the driver and will be mandatory (to prevent drivers "accidentally" breaking them).

And that's it.

Haaaa we tried that.
if you'd like I can give you my address, come look see what is left of them cameras, and the GPS receivers...

 

[Pho3nix]

We did that, I did all the electronics for it... it was doomed from the start, the taxi operators and bosses were not having any of it...

Mind PMing me the company who still holds the tech for this

 

[AstroTurf]

Haaaa we tried that.
if you'd like I can give you my address, come look see what is left of them cameras, and the GPS receivers...

You paid for them right...

 

[Alton Turner Blackwood]

Going cashless is one thing, having the driver fill up the vehicle is another because he'll either need cash or a card. Giving him a card is a bad idea since he'll then use it to fill up for his buddies.