fonaCAB Q&A

Why can’t I get a taxi?

About a thousand drivers a year leave the taxi industry in Northern Ireland and up until Covid this number was fairly constant (retirement, change of career etc). The issue is that since new Driver testing was introduced by the DVA in 2014 its now much more difficult to become a taxi driver and as such the numbers aren’t being replaced. The sector was already stating to feel the strain by 2019 but when Covid hit and work dried up, many drivers put their licences in the drawer and left the industry for other jobs never to return.

In 2014 there were 14500 taxi licenses in NI, now there are just over 8000 and we believe that of that 8000 around 6000 are actively driving with the rest having moved on but still with a valid license. Private hire taxis like fonaCAB have seen a drop of about 25% to 30% in Driver numbers but the likes of the black taxis that operate like buses along arterial routes have lost more than half their numbers

Simple answer is that unfortunately the demand for taxis outstrips supply of drivers – in fonaCABs case this is normally from around 3pm on a weekday and all weekend

We have adjusted fares in the evenings and weekends to make it more attractive for Drivers to work and to provide customers with a better service however with drivers choosing when they work and for how long, many are now choosing to work around 9-5 Monday to Friday. We’ve also found that like many others coming through the pandemic, drivers are now working around 10% less hours than before

In essence, fewer drivers in the industry, many choosing to work weekdays instead of weekends and on average working fewer hours

Why did we buy up all the depots?

Operating a taxi business is expensive – you need to pay for a dispatch system, telephone costs, staff call centres, premises, provide lost property and customer services etc. In order to pay for all of this, a depot needs to have a minimum number of drivers to turn the lights on.

With driver numbers decreasing over the last eight years and with far fewer coming into the industry, every company is fishing in the same pond for drivers and fonaCAB have done better than most over the years in attracting and keeping drivers

Many small depots get to the point where it is not financially possible to keep going and approach us to ask if we’re interested in buying them out and quite often when a buy out in an area happens, other local depots ask us to do the same

For us, we are already paying all the structural costs and the opportunity to add drivers and to move into new areas is a benefit for us. When we buy a depot, the drivers are asked to transfer across and the vast majority of them move and stay with fonaCAB, but they are self employed and free to move to any other depot at that or any other time

It is in our interest to have as many drivers as possible to service our customers and any suggestion that we buy depots to reduce numbers is incorrect.

Driver Issues

If you want to run a taxi company it is a stipulation of your operator’s license that you must have a customer service department which handles complaints, bookings and lost property. fonaCAB has all of these

When drivers join fonaCAB that are inducted and are expected to follow our uniform and vehicle standards and to meet our code of conduct.

Taxi drivers are subject to the same rules of the road and other laws as other drivers and individuals. While they are very aware of their responsibilities (they have to pass a theory test and ongoing professional development to show that they are) We know that some drivers sometimes fall short. If you have a specific issue with one of our drivers email the details through to us at customerservices@fonacab.com and we will investigate. If you feel the issue is more serious, you can still contact us, but if you feel there needs to be intervention from an outside body such as the DVA or the PSNI we have procedures in place for sharing necessary information with them

We can only do something about issues concerning drivers if we know about them, so if you have any, please make sure you let us know

Difference between fonaCAB and Value Cabs

fonaCAB was founded in 1962 and is now run as his main business by William McCausland. Value Cabs is run by Christopher McCausland who runs car parks as their main business. They are cousins.

Over the last two years specifically, fonaCAB has worked with Value Cabs to lobby the DFI for changes to the industry that we believe will benefit drivers and customers and in doing so will sustain operators. While we have a good working relationship with Value Cabs for lobbying, we have the same relationship with over forty other private hire taxi companies across NI who have all been suffering the same issues

fonaCAB is the largest private hire company, and Value Cabs would be the second largest, but it would be incorrect to call it a Duopoly as there are at least six other taxi companies with a sizeable and comparable number of drivers in NI

What about New Drivers entering the industry

This is our main priority at present. We believe that the current system of testing applicants wishing to become drivers is expensive, convoluted and take too long to complete (around a 20% pass rate) We lobbied the DFI and managed to get applicant fees suspended by the Minister, but we are still pushing for the requirements to be rolled back to where they were in 2014 – in other words, the standards with which 85% of drivers working today qualified with. This would mean three years driving experience, a repute check and a medical. This would make the biggest difference in attracting new drivers into the industry

As for new driver incentives, we have been looking at these for some time and are evaluating various options including pay as you go, car plus fuel plus insurance deals, discounted rent and vehicle packages and others, but these will only take drivers from other depots and not solve the overall capacity issues in the industry so the issue of entry requirements needs addressed first.

Why are you so expensive?

Setting fares is a balancing act at the best of times. Making sure they are high enough to encourage drivers to come out to work, but not so high that they discourage customers from booking. You’ll find our fares vary depending on the time of week (demand led)

We have some drivers asking us to increase fares further (maximum fares are determined by the DFI and we cannot exceed what they set) because of the price of fuel but equally we have customers who are also facing cost of living issues and we are resisting charging them more

As a guide, Northern Ireland sits at number 245 out of 349 regions in the UK for average taxi price (source PHTM)

Some drivers turning off Meters

If you have booked a taxi you should pay what is on the meter. There are exceptions which you can read about at https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/taxi-fares. Private hire taxis from all companies are allowed to pick up from the street without a booking at various locations and times across NI. With taxis everywhere being in short supply, in some cases passengers are offering these drivers a fixed fee to encourage them to accept a booking and this unfortunately encourages bidding by other passengers resulting in higher off the meter fares being accepted. In some instances, this is fine, in others it is not (see link)

We do not encourage this practice and always recommend that passengers book their taxi through our contact centre. There are many other good reasons for this – if for example you think you’ve left your phone in the back of one of our taxis it is much easier to find if the taxi is booked rather than one you’ve jumped into on the street

Teslas on the fonaCAB Fleet

We have a couple of Tesla Model S on the Fleet and a few Model 3 (although we have more than a hundred other drivers in electric and hybrid cars.) The drivers like them because of the long range and low running costs. Although they are more expensive to buy, it seems that at present this is more than offset by the savings against maintenance and fuel at present

Business customers like them because it helps with their environmental aspirations, the general public like them for their novelty and technology, but we’ll admit that the door handles on the Model 3 were confusing for many when first introduced

Why did you change your app?

We loved our old app…it was simple and easy to use, but we had no choice and had to change it because it wasn’t capable of dealing with new Strong Card Authentication (SCA) regulations now required by the banks for card transactions

We’ve taken on board feedback about the APP and will be refreshing it again in the near future which will hopefully iron out many of the niggles

Waiting Time – why do drivers not wait?

Every taxi company will have their own policies and procedures around this. At fonaCAB, we expect drivers to wait for five minutes after the booked time before calling the job a “no show” and moving on

One of the unfortunate outcomes of covid is that with fewer drivers working anywhere, customers sometimes might book say three different taxis from three different companies and take the first one that shows up without cancelling the other two. This has the effect of wasted time, fuel, and miles and the opportunity for bookings for those other two drivers. As such, Drivers are much stricter on waiting time than pre covid if they are wary of a “no show” like this. We also ask that customers are at the pick up point for the confirmed booked time to avoid this happening

Sponsorship of community sports and causes

fonaCAB is the biggest taxi company and as such we should be associated with the biggest teams and events. This is for promotion to help brand awareness to increase bookings for drivers. fonaCAB has a much more suburban customer base than some other operators and as such we will also often sponsor everything from local darts leagues, snooker tournaments, kids football etc etc. We do do this to give something back to the communities which give our drivers our core business and as we are based across so many different areas, we give back to a variety of sports and causes across all of our operating areas.

Booking in advance / assigning last minute

The majority of our bookings are dispatched automatically by our dispatch system. It works to ensure that the right driver is assigned to your job (for example, that hes closest to you or perhaps that you need to transport a dog) and that he arrives on time with no waiting around for them or delay for you. Drivers have always been assigned to jobs just before the pick up time for these reasons (we’ll not know well in advance who is working, where they are, if they are dog friendly, if they have a multiseater etc.), but with fewer drivers working in the sector these days there may not be a driver available for you at the time you want it – hence a short delay

Reserve service for a Saturday night

If there were more drivers in the industry and if more could be persuaded to work on a Saturday night, then this should be the way that any taxi company operates – supply and demand would balance.

fonaCAB Environmental policy

This is something that is getting significantly more focus at fonaCAB – driven by us in our desire to reduce our environmental footprint and costs, driven by our customers, especially corporate ones who more often than not are requesting low or zero emission vehicles and driven by drivers who can also see the financial benefits of driving a low or zero emission vehicle

We have over 100 electric and hybrid vehicles around the fleet and this number is growing on a daily basis and we are currently investigating a significant commitment to a charging network along with a forecourt retailer which we hope will accelerate the change

Diesel will not go away overnight however and will be around for some years to come. fonaCAB drivers tend to drive the youngest Euro6 emission diesels. We did investigate introducing Hydro treated vegetable oil (HVO) to our drivers as it has a very low environmental footprint and can be used in a standard car, but with a price premium above what are already historically high diesel prices, this is currently not going to be financially attractive for drivers.

Hiring for the Call Centre

We’re looking for staff now as a matter of fact – working on a hybrid basis between home and our call centres. We wanted to recruit last year but social distancing restrictions meant that we were unable to bring staff on site for training and induction so we had to delay recruitment. If you’re interested, email your CV to jobs@fonacab.com

VAT on Company accounts

This has been an ongoing discussion with HMRC for some time if you are aware of this its probably because you have received an email from us – all the relevant information is in that. As we are challenging the position of HMRC it wouldn’t be appropriate to comment outside of this information until this is concluded. We can tell you however that it only applies to customers who book and pay using an account. If you are one of these and wish to avoid the complications of VAT, you can still book with your account but pay either with a credit card attached to the APP, contactless in car, or cash at the end of your journey

Increased drivers pay

Virtually every driver in the taxi sector across the UK is self employed, the depot does not pay them. In our case, drivers keep all of their fares as their income, fonaCAB charge them a weekly fee for providing bookings, telephony, card transaction, IT support etc

The only way we can influence driver income as a depot is in how we set the fares. Fares for most taxis in NI are determined by a tariff card set by the DFI / DVA and we cannot charge more than the maximum they have determined

The DFI allowed an interim increase to the maximum tariff in Nov 2021which we implemented immediately for fonaCAB drivers. They have promised a full fare review in 2022 but we do not expect to see the outcomes from this until the back end of the year

Wheelchair accessible taxi during school hours

Wheelchair accessible vehicles are always in high demand – even from long before the pandemic. One of the general issues for drivers of these vehicles is that while they are more expensive to buy and maintain, they operate virtually all of the time on the same fare structure as a standard taxi. In the current high cost environment, some drivers have chosen to change to standard taxis for lower running costs

Another issue is that drivers are committed from 6am to 7pm many days providing transport for patients to health trust appointments. It is unreasonable to ask them to work additional hours outside of these times.

The solution to this is that the industry needs more drivers – if there are more drivers in general, there will be more drivers as a proportion

Expanding to the North West

We’ve been asked this a few times, particularly because of our support of the NW200. We have no plans in that area at this time

Preauthorisation of card payments

Because of new banking regulations (Strong Customer Authentication) we have to preauthorise any card spend through our APP to ensure that the card is genuine and that there are funds available for the booking – the amount shows as pending on the customer statement. We never actually take any money, it is simply held as pending in your account

If the booking does not go through, or if the customer cancels the booking, we release the “hold” on the amount immediately although our experience is that the amount of time it takes for your bank to release the hold at their end varies enormously – online banks seem to be close to immediate, bricks and mortar banks, especially Danske for some reason, keep the hold for several days

We do not keep any Preauth funds

Covid and masks

fonaCAB uses an online driver portal to communicate important information to our drivers. we supplement these with text messages and notifications sent to their datahead. As a company we advised drivers about the legalities of mask wearing and penalties for not doing so through these platforms on a very regular basis. Drivers were also made aware of mask exemptions which applied to them in the same way as it applied to all other members of the public. Covid regulations did not allow us to ask customers why they were not wearing a mask and the same applied to drivers

Most drivers did wear masks and many still do as they are wary of the effect on their family and their livelihood if they catch covid and as a comparison over 400 of our drivers would have had screens fitted during the pandemic

Advance Bookings

You should still continue to book in advance where you can. Bookings which are made in advance have a higher priority than those which are made at the time. Those that are made more than 24 hours in advance have a higher priority again. Unfortunately with the demand for taxis exceeding supply of drivers at present it means that even with the higher priority your booking may be delayed

Answering phones at busy periods

That can happen at busy periods and we apologise if we are not able to get you a taxi. We accept these calls as many customers may be wishing to change their booking or cancel. Other operators when busy choose instead to not answer the phone at all

Average Driver earnings

That's not an easy question to answer because their earnings are very much in their own hands. A driver working weekends will earn more per booking than one during the week. some drivers work set hours regardless of how many jobs they have, others go home after theyve earned a specific amount, others again will maximise working at busy times and keep working until demand dies down - there is a huge variance

Driver availability for regular bookings

When there were many more drivers working it was easier to guarantee regular bookings as we were always sure of higher capacity at all times

Because drivers choose their own hours, it is difficult to predict in advance how many will be our working at any one time. We are working on notifications for the customer to tell them if their taxi is likely to be delayed, but knowing how many drivers will be working a day in advance is not possible right now

RTB as a way of purchasing a taxi and fares

We offer in house finance to drivers yes, its called RTB. Drivers tend to like it because it has a much lower deposit requirement, lower credit score requirement and should they leave fonaCAB they can return the car whereas with normal finance they are committed to it. Drivers are not forced into these, they can drive their own cars, purchase or finance their cars elsewhere - all we ask is that their car is roadworthy, clean and presentable. Hours - drivers are actually working approximately 10% fewer hours at fonaCAB now than they were before the pandemic because they are earning sufficient for them in the hours because of current higher demand. Poor pay.- fonaCAB like all other Class A taxi companies in Northern Ireland have to work to a maximum fare tariff that is set by the DFI. our fares went up in Nov 2021 and we operate at or close to the maximum tariff to reward drivers and encourage them to work. Hope this helps

How are jobs allocated

The nearest driver generally does get offered the job first, but it is the drivers prerogative as to whether they accept that job. Say for example its the last job of the night and the driver is looking for a last fare to take him home to Lisburn but he gets offered one to Bangor, he may be the closest driver but can still have his reasons for not accepting that booking

Best alternative to fonaCAB

When Translink said at Christmas that they were putting night busses on in Belfast everyone thought the taxi industry would be up in arms - we were delighted

Having more than one option encourages people to go out more - you'll more likely head into town if you know you have three or four options for coming home than just the one

While we want to see people using our services, we also want to see people using hospitality, tourism, shops etc and getting there and back safely by any means

Based on the questions already asked, On a scale of 1 - 10 where 1 is the lowest and 10 being the highest. What's the likely hood of fonaCAB taking any of the criticisms on board and actually doing anything about them?

What's the chances of a vetting procedure being put in place for new drivers

How scared of Uber are you?

I would say a 9 - there's some things we can do nothing about. The taxi industry across the World is broken and we're just trying here to do our little bit to fix our part of it

There already is a vetting procedure - new drivers have to pass an enhanced Access NI test

Not really, there's space for them and more - we would like to see them regulated in the same way as the rest of the industry though because we believe their surge pricing will become the norm as driver shortages continue and this will only reduce customer demand in the longer term

How is the cost of fuel affecting your business

fuel is one of the biggest costs that a driver has and the increases we have seen in the price certainly has not helped them. That being said, we are not at present experiencing any further drop in driver numbers as a result of it, and drivers do not appear to be working more hours than usual. This may change if the high price persists

What's your policy on moving to EVs?

We submitted a response to the DFI some time back about what it would take to move our fleet to EV as we're big fans. unfortunately the public charging network is holding this back at present but we still have over 100 fully electric and hybrid vehicles on the fleet (about 10%) drivers changing their cars are more often looking for Corolla Hybrids these days than Skoda diesels, partly because of the purchase price but mainly because of the lower running and maintenance costs

I've been using fonaCAB regularly for 20 years. Many of your drivers are sound, some are...not. Yet none of them has ever had a good word to say about you as a company or about how you treat your drivers. Why is that?

I think with every business you will find people who like the work and people who don't. The majority of our drivers have been with us a long time and considering they are free to leave and work for any depot at any time they stay (or in the case of three drivers this week who left then returned to fonaCAB) We're not going to satisfy everyone because every driver has a different idea of what taxi driving should be, but we're satisfied that with the loyalty that we have we must be doing something right. Its difficult to gauge opinion sometimes because with som many customers and drivers, people tend to remember the bad experiences and not the good ones and we certainly have plenty of those. We will take your comments on board and once again thanks for the feedback

Why did you absorb all the local taxi companies in Lisburn then decide to send all the taxis out of Lisburn during the evenings and close the taxi rank?

We bought two taxi companies in Lisburn, the rest continued to trade. Drivers pick and choose the jobs that they want to accept, so if a Lisburn driver has chosen a job say from Lisburn to Belfast instead of Lisburn to Lisburn it is their choice. We would of course prefer to cover both jobs but with the current industry shortage of drivers demand continues to exceed supply. We didn't close the taxi rank, drivers are kept with their wheels turning because of demand