TAXI REFORMS

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 42, 19 February 1943, Page 4

TAXI REFORMS

NO STREET HAILING

TEN-MILE TRIP LIMIT

A ten-mile radius of operation, compulsory "clocking in" and a measure of priority for telephone hiring, are measures decided on to improve the taxi services in Auckland. In effect, they prohibit the hailing of taxis in the street. These measures are the first instalment decided upon by the Auckland Taxicab Control Committee, which has been conferring over the past three days with the Commissioner of Transport, Mr. G. L. Laurenson. Recommendations for amendments to the Transport Control Emergency Regulations, providing in particular for a unified telephone control system and for compulsory _ rostering of taxis, have also been decided upon. It was announced yesterday that the control committee had been enlarged by the appointment of a City Council "nominee, and as the matter was regarded as urgent, the Mayor, Mr. Alluln, last night nominated Mr. H. J. Butcher, chairman of the council's Public Safety Committee, for the position. The committee previously consisted of Mr. Lisle Alderton, chairman, and Messrs. P. I. Drumm and J. A. C. Sinclair, managers of the Atta and Checker taxicab companies respectively. The addition, with the chairman's casting vote, gives the general public a majority on the committee should there be a division of opinion between its representatives and those of the taxi interests. In future, taxicabs licensed by the Metropolitan Licensing Authority are not to operate outside a ten-mile radius from the Auckland Chief Post Office, except Avith the prior consent of a member of the control committee. After completing a hiring, a taxidriver must proceed to the nearest taxistand and report by telephone to the exchange operator. He must remain on the rank and answer any telephone call made by the exchange. Before accepting any hiring at the stand or leaving the stand, he must first telephone the exchange and receive permission to do so. Mr. Alderton said that "clocking in" would apply to the 25 or 30 "independent" taxis which operated from a stand in Queen Street outside the Waverley Hotel, as well as to the Atta and Checker cabs. A watch would be kept on the working of the system by officers of the City Council's traffic staff and certain Transport Department inspectors.