Parking Issues

  Parking is a constant issue for the private hire driver, unlike Taxi drivers who have public money spent on providing ranks throughout the city (yet on a Friday/Saturday night it's still impossible to find one), the private hire driver has the nightmare task of having to return to base or pre-defined satellite parking locations.

  It has become the situation that on becoming a private hire driver you lose the same basic rights that every other road user has. How did this situation manage to come about?

  Well it basically amounts to the fact that a few bad apples spoilt the barrel. There was a time not so long ago where no-one took offence at a driver been parked up outside their home or in the car park of their business. Unfortunately some didn't treat this privilege the way they should have, loud music, littering, abusive behaviour when asked to move, etc, etc. led to a nightmare scenario for all of us.

  As laid out by Leeds City Council it is the responsibility of the operating company to provide sufficient parking for all the vehicles it operates.Whether this is through owned land, rental agreements or non-written agreement for parking spaces, they are required to have enough to make sure every vehicle it operates can be parked up if needed. They also must inform their drivers where these spaces are.
  However it is Leeds City Council's responsibility to make sure these rules are enforced, as the licensing body they have the responsibility (if not legally then certainly morally) to make sure they are only licensing vehicles if sufficient parking exists.
  Now in theory there is probablly sufficient parking for all private hire vehicles that operate at any given time to park up, even if not with individual companies but probablly collectivley throughout the city. Now someone somewhere in a office in a dark corner may have these figures, given our experience we doubt these figures (if they exist) have ever seen the light of day.
  So this is the background of the senario, the day to day is the enforcement officers respond to a problem, they tell the operator to do something about it, the operator puts out a general warning message and tells the enforment officers it's their problem since they licensed them, the issue gets passed to and fro like this for weeks, months, years even and nothing changes.
  Moving forward....

What the general public could do...

Be a little more tolerent of drivers parking up outside their house, the drivers don't want to be parked up they want to be working and earning money, we all want a quick response when ordering a Taxi and as long as drivers aren't been a nuisance then what harm is it to have them parked outside your house.

What drivers could do...

Be more respectful, appreciate that not everyone wants a vehicle outside their house and if asked to move apologise and move, don't get into a argument about it. Be responsible, don't litter, don't be a nuisance, dim your lights at night so it's not shinning through someones front window when you turn around. If you have friends who own a business ask them to write a letter to your operator allowing them the use of their car park outside business hours or limited use during them.

What operators could do...

Find more parking would be the obvious answer, but it's not that simple, parking requires land which cost money this leads to increase fare prices at the end of the day. A far more cost effective solution would be to be more proactive, ask your contract customers for a letter allowing use of their car parks, be more vigilant with your drivers, speak to other operators about a mutual we can use any/all your parking in exchange you can use all ours, and get it in writing.

What the Council could do...

Be more lenient on non relevant issues, one driver parked up on an empty street is not the same issue as five parked up on a busy road and school kicking out time. Open up the many abandoned council owned land sites for use by private hire drivers. Be more controlled in their monitoring of the issue, introduce a system of fair and consistant tracking procedures that are put on a drivers record file (first offence, second offence, written warning, second written warning, disaplinary route/fines). Be more proactive in solving the problem instead of just relocating it. Work with operators to help combat the problem, offer appropriate land and planning contacts to help them obtain more land for parking, redirect drivers to appropriate locations. Use some of the £1million (at least) that is paid in badge/plate renewal fees to obtain land for use by all private hire companies (it can't all go on wages and running costs). Make it part of the operating license conditions that any operator must share it's parking locations with other operators. But whatever you do remember to be fair and a little bit of carrot not just all stick.