The real reason you can’t get a taxi

EVER wondered why you can’t get a cab in the city? Chances are, while you’re waiting at the taxi rank, the drivers are waiting for something else.

EVER wondered why you just can’t get a cab in the city?

While you’re waiting at the cab rank hundreds of taxi drivers are likely waiting too. At the airport.

Reports that taxi drivers are abandoning regular jobs to wait hours to jag a more lucrative fare from travellers itching to get home are the latest in a string of blows to the ailing industry, and incidentally, ride-sharing service Uber’s latest reasons to smile.

A report published by the Herald Sun today revealed Melbourne taxi drivers were queuing at the Tullamarine airport holding bay while leaving hundreds of would-be customers waiting in the city.

A wait of up to three hours in the busy and often full holding bay, which can take up to 680 cabs at any one time, was usually “worth the wait”, one driver told the paper, while attracting a fare in the city was just “not worth it”.

“We go to the airport to try to get a good fare,” cabbie Gurjot Sodhi said.

“The city is already overcrowded for taxis and you can’t always find a place to park in a rank.”

While drivers cited the reason for abandoning metro areas to take their chances on travellers was the overcrowding of taxis in the city, disappointed cab-takers said they were often left waiting trying to get out of the CBD.

Passengers wait for scarce taxis in the CBD. Pic: Norm Oorloff

Australian Taxis Industry Association chief executive Blair Davies told news.com.au the trend of taxis crowding at airports was a symptom of oversupply of taxis within the industry, and a problematic response to increased external competition.

“When you get an oversupply of taxis, what happens is they congregate at airports, and to a lesser extent CBDs, on ranks. This happens everywhere in the world,” he said.

“It’s particularly a problem in Melbourne because they have more of an issue with oversupply, but it’s happening everywhere and it’s happening more because of that increased competition.”

The taxi industry is already losing ground to alternative services like ride-sharing app Uber, with customers praising the service as offering a friendlier and more efficient service.

Not being registered taxis, drivers delivering the company’s UberX service are not welcome in airport or other taxi bays and have little incentive to hang around waiting for fares.

Mr Davies said the entry of “imitation taxis” to the market would exacerbate the issue of oversupply, and was driving traditional taxi drivers away from accepting bookings that they had to drive out to, or going for smaller fares.

And while cabbies queued up for bigger paying jobs, the newcomers were snapping up smaller fares in the suburbs.

“If drivers have more competition they’re going to want to maximise the profit of every ride, even if that might be misguided, and that might mean going to places they think they’ll get a better fare, or cancelling on shorter trips,” he said.

“Imitation taxis are exacerbating that competition but have difficulty working at airports, so it’s likely that as UberX services become more of a problem in the market, the cabbies will look to servicing the airports where they’re not competing so much with those services.”

Uber’s UberX service is ‘exacerbating the problem’, according to the Australian Taxi Industry Association. Pic: David Ramos

In a statement to news.com.au, a spokeswoman for Uber said frustrated travellers wouldn’t be left waiting or have their trips cancelled in favour of a better fare.

“One of the great things about Uber is that riders can feel confident once they request a ride that they will be picked up on time and travel safely to their destination, no matter how long or short the journey,” she said.

The statement said the service had experienced “phenomenal growth” in Melbourne over the past 12 months and the average pick up time in the Victorian capital was now less than four minutes.