TAXI LICENCES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25796, 17 March 1945, Page 6

TAXI LICENCES

The public of Dunedin, which requires a taxi-cab service at times when other transportation is not available or convenient, may have regarded with some concern the persistent refusal of the Dunedin Metropolitan Transport Licensing Authority to issue additional taxidriving licences. Those who have had the misfortune to wait, sometimes for upwards of an hour at a time, to obtain taxi service, or who have stood laden with luggage in the milling crowd which assembles every day at the railway station when express trains arrive and have endeavoured to secure a modest share of a taxi to convey them to their homes, will find some difficulty in agreeing with the view taken by the Authority that the number of taxis in Dunedin is sufficient for the requirements of the inhabitants. Indeed, if the definition of adequacy be that those who order taxis should in the normal way be able to obtain them promptly, it is absurd to say that the Dunedin public is catered for adequately. The local Licensing Authority, in twice refusing the claim of several returned servicemen for licences to operate taxis, emphasised that its decision was given on judicial grounds, its function being defined by the Transport Licensing Act and its decisions based on that measure and its orders and amendments, and upon actual evidence submitted to it. The position of the local Authority can be appreciated. Nevertheless, the Authority is empowered by the Act to issue transport licences, including taxi-drivers’ licences, when it considers that this would be in the public interest. Its decision to refuse the issue of more licences for the Dunedin district seems to have been judicial to an exaggerated degree, since some company taxis are apparently being operated on a double shift, with extra petrol allocations to meet what must be presumed to be a heavy demand for service, and the city’s chief traffic inspector has testified that the licensed taxis could have made use of much greater petrol allowances —the inference being that the demand was not being met. This evidence—for evidence it surely is, even when it is not verbal but is contained in simple statistics — establishes that the taxis operating in Dunedin are both over-worked and under-supplied with fuel—in other words, that through no fault of the operators they are not able to serve the public interest to the full. The Licensing Authority might have concluded, therefore, that it should carry out its duty as defined by the Act by issuing new licences; or by taking steps to see that existing operators are enabled to extend their running in order to meet the public demand. Since taxi-driving by the owner-driver must be regarded as a reasonable and proper form of rehabilitation, and since the development of anything that might be said t.o be of the nature of private monopolies (which can overnight become State monopolies) is not generally regarded as desirable, a reasonable course would surely have been to issue licences to the men who had applied for them. They appear to ■ have been victims of State interference in business, upheld by a narrowly zealous local authority. Their unfortunate position is ironically emphasised when another ex-serviceman, having the good fortune to discover a taxi-cab service licence for sale, is able to set himself up with the Licensing Authority’s blessing as. an owner-driver.