London Heathrow Gatwick Airport Taxi Services

London Heathrow Gatwick Airport Taxi Services
Heathrow Taxi

Saturday 24 August 2013

Brokers Who Break the Rules

Ed Halil brought up the very interesting issue of how the market can be disrupted by brokers. Some of these operations appear to ride right over the licensing rules of local authorities.

London currently has a large number of companies that are app-driven chauffeur services and all do the same thing. They claim to be partners with established companies and offer digital booking services that are promised to send business to firms that are well established.

Blacklane, a German company that is growing quickly, is the latest provider that has wasted absolutely no time doing business in the UK. The company’s founder says, "We work in close partnership with local limousine service providers, bringing additional business rather than generating competition." 

That sounds reasonable however, at some point in the future Blacklane will want to take a cut for the referrals it gives. The same applies for Uber in the United States, which is testing a fairly similar service. At least three companies are pretty open about their fees. You can see their fares. The result is that the chauffeur company will have to agree with the fare price Blacklane or Uber will give them.
Less professional brokers work a bit differently. They offer lower priced fares like airport runs on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. The majority of the better operators refuse this work, but the operators at the bottom of the ladder will not.

Customers may believe they are getting a great deal, until they see the driver dressed in flip-flops, shorts and a football shirt. Scruffy! Kudos, to Maidstone Council for requiring its driver’s to follow a dress code. This entire means that the respectable local providers lose out on a job. The only one winning is the broker.
The London PCO model provides a great template for taxi and PHV licensing and we would like to see a more regional approach taken which follows this template. Cross-border operations are reasonably well controlled even though we have a very fragmented mess. However there are some local councils who happily license and operator who is pursuing trade via the internet far away from his minor base.
If you are feeling a sense of déjà vu, it is because this is one of the principal reasons beyond the demise of the market for stretch limos. Here a small number of brokers employing search optimization experts could easily trap people into using their services.

Price is king. It always has been. The customer cannot communicate with the actual company who will provide the service. The broker may appear professional but the job can be given to any operator, professional or not, who is willing to take it. It is important to remember that most of this business still remains outside any governmental control. It is no surprise that VOSA continues sending its Town Cars to be crushed.

If we don’t make changes soon, we may very well fact a similar situation in the licensed private chauffeur and hire sector. Hopefully the Law Commission is paying attention to these trends and will soon incorporate a reasonable strategy with regional PCOs located in major cities.


In the meantime, there is no need to get hooked by a broker. There are various companies available that will create an app for you. That will allow you to compete online for business that is completely yours.

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