Hybrid Highway: Hailing the Future

I told you it was complicated. So areas were open to competition and some areas were not, usually very big cities like London and Manchester. The airports are usually at big cities. Also, some airports would only allow taxi companies that they allowed and guess what prices they charged. I'd have to be careful how I word this but I know in my local airport customers of mine would complain that the airport authorised cabs were about 50% more expensive than me. They were also right outside the door whereas I had to park about 300 yards away in the super expensive short stay drop off zone racking up about £1 every 15 minutes. If the customer was delayed I was stuffed and there was usually no parking within about a mile of the airport - funny that. I'd have to park up about a mile away and literally watch the flight come in and land and wait about 30 minutes for the customer to come out and ring me. I'd then have to drive over and pick them up quickly.

Inconvenient for the customer or they could always choose the airport cab lol.

Those are the facts. Read between the lines, always assuming there are any lines to read between.

 

Grumpy,
This website shows full metered fares as 1.5£* per mile, and we calculated Prius fuel as 10p a mile.
So even with quite expensive fuel, the above works out to 6.6% of metered charge goes to fuel.

I know the car is expensive, but I think it fair to say that like the big US cities, you are operating under high friction charges. By friction I mean regulation and upstream uncompetitive costs in all their guises. I am not passing judgement (being neither a US republican or a UK torrie), just making an observation.

*That does not include the start charge, so perhaps the average customer charge per mile is more like 2.0 - 2.5£ during the day ?

 

That website is wrong and you're not reading the full picture.

This is the rate sheet for all the different rating structures in the UK for a standard 2 mile average fare;


PHTM - October 2014 digital edition


If that link doesn't fully work check out page 66 & 67. For a 2 mile run in London the fare is £7.60, in Harrogate it's £6.40 and the lowest is Bolsover at £2.80.

You do use much less fuel in town compared to a long airport run BUT it's the time that kills the job. You have to drive to the customers house, wait for them to faff about before they come out and get in. Even with the meter on, waiting time doesn't cover your actual time costs. Then drive a mile or two and then drive to your next job. Assuming you're lucky to get one after the after the other, you're lucky to cover 4 jobs in an hour.

But to agree with what you say about 10p a mile. I used to work it as £1 a mile of earnings. 100 miles was £100, but earnings were not all for me remember. Of that 100 miles, £50 was costs, leaving £50. Then you have roughly £10 for petrol leaving £40 for me. But as you can see if I stayed in town all those little jobs would have to be literally one after the other after the other to make that £10 an hour break even. Any delay, any hold up, any lack of a job for 10, 20 or 40 minutes eats into your earnings.

And put it another way, £50 a day is minimum wage.

 

i would go along with what GC has said about running costs.

Monday i did London, that was close to £300
Tuesday, southampton, close to £200.

That looks like quite a good couple of days, i travelled 760 miles and used about £70 in fuel, i was averaging 60mpg which i was very pleased with
again this still looks like quite a good return especially when you realise that if i did a 12 hour shift in/around town i can do £195, only cover 145 miles and so use just over £20 in fuel

its all about how the jobs fall, next week i could be twiddling my thumbs and reading a book every 2 days because it so quiet.

what members of the public fail to see is the cost of being a taxi driver, for me it stacks like this:

170 per week radio rent
25 per week insurance
120 per week fuel (average)
100 per week repairs (that's saved every week, any excess goes into the next car savings fund)
50 per week in odds and ends (uniform etc)

so thats £465 before i can pay any personal bills!!

 

lol I agree. The old "How come you charge £20 to take me to the local airport when it's only 10 miles away. That should be £2 for the fuel" question I got asked time and again. Yes Madam, and then it's another £2 fuel to come home, so that's £4 and the £2 access fee to the airport makes £6. Then it takes 30 minutes each way in traffic so that's an hours wage I have to earn. After fuel I'm left with £14 gross before tax and expenses (like yours above). Out of that £20 I'd be lucky to take home £7 for an hours work.

Hmmm, I've just reminded myself why I quit.

 

we had a lot of station wagon, then minivan taxi's in the 70's thru 90's. seems like most big cities have gone hybrid in many different forms, but definitely not diesel. buying diesel is also a problem around here as well, not every station carries it. still, if i had to be stuck in a closed room with a running diesel or a hybrid, i'd choose the hybrid.

 

It really depends on for how long, how well sealed a room, and the hybrid's current SOC. The diesel will likely get unpleasant after a while, but the DPF will get most of the irrating particles. If the SOC is low though, the carbon monoxide of the gasoline might just kill you.

 

The Prius will warm up and then shut off the ICE for prolonged periods.
The diesel will consume oxygen continuously, but not to worry: you will asphyxiate before the car shuts down.

 

Why I stated it depends on the SOC.
If it was a hermetically sealed room, I'd be trying to pull fuses or the fuel line. CO is the immediate killer, and it is magnitude greater coming from a gasoline engine versus a diesel one. That's why we were able to link diesel emissions to cancer in miners. If they used gasoline powered equipment, they would have died before getting cancer, or likely before getting paid.