Be pragmatic, not dogmatic, Mr Khan

Hailing a taxi via an app is not plying for hire. The Court of Appeal’s landmark judgement over a black cab group’s attempt to block Free Now finally puts to bed a contentious issue that frankly should never have got as far as it did.

Once geolocation technology became widely available on smartphones, there was no way the process of booking a private hire vehicle could ever be wound back to phone lines and offices with orange flashing lights outside.

UTAG’s assertion that an unmarked minicab is “plying for hire” just because it is driving around waiting for a job in a busy part of town is nonsense – and the judges’ scathing response said as much. “Virtual hailing” is not the same as standing with your arm out, flagging down a taxi. End of. Nothing to see here, move on.

If only such clarity of thought and judgement could be brought to other contentious issues. Hats off to Gerrards CEO Martin Cox for challenging TfL over its intransigent approach to vehicle licensing.

TfL’s insistence on zero-emissions capable vehicles being the only ones allowed for private hire use is one of the most stupid, self-defeating decisions. Almost up there with Brexit on the gun-to-foot scale of idiocy.

Yes, we all want to see cleaner vehicles. I’m sure that given the operating cost advantage, every operator would happily switch to electric – if it was possible to do so.

Ever since TfL introduced the idea of “ZEC” vehicles back in 2015, we’ve said it was a bad idea. Remember too that DfT/DoE guidelines for taxis and PHVs is Euro 4 petrol/ Euro 6 diesel. Those standards are applied in all other Clean Air Zones; it is only TfL that has gone beyond them.

And therein lies the problem. There are still very limited numbers of vehicles that meet the criteria. Take seven-seater chauffeur cars. The only game in town is the Mercedes-Benz EQV, an electrified V-Class. It has a range of barely 200 miles, it’s expensive and in very short supply. The supply does not meet the demand, and as a result, fleets needing vehicles are having to buy diesels. But TfL won’t let them register new diesels, so they have to buy ones that are 18 months old (bizarrely, these can be licensed still).

This means dealers are charging premium prices for secondhand V-Classes – more than the new list price of a 2020 car, in some cases.

Other operators are just hanging on to the vehicles they have. Which means TfL’s intention to clean up the fleet is having the opposite effect. Older diesels, with higher mileages and greater levels of engine wear are chugging around because there are no EVs available.

At least allowing new diesels to be licensed would bring about some improvement in air quality. Remember that if there was bountiful EQV supply, the operators would buy the cars. But there isn’t.

And even if there was, the infrastructure in London is still not up to speed. Drivers need on-street charging, and that needs to be much more extensive than the current occasional charger. It needs every lamp post to be capable of recharging overnight. But TfL can’t afford this either.

Until the ducks are in a row – vehicle availability and infrastructure – we need a temporary moratorium (Martin Cox suggests 24 months, which seems eminently sensible) on the unreasonable ZEC rule. Remember, even non-plug-in hybrids were ruled out, so demonstrably clean cars such as the Toyota Prius became unlicensable.

Sadiq Khan cannot deflect every request for a little pragmatism with dogmatic answers about children dying from pollution. Nothing TfL is doing at present is helping matters. It’s just making things worse. Get things moving again, and allow businesses to recover.

Here at Professional Driver we fully support Martin Cox’s initiative and we’ll do whatever we can to help.

Mark Bursa Editor

markbursa@prodrivermags.com