Canberra Airport - Rego ACT - ACT Government

this situation is rectified, there is clear evidence under this metric that more cabs are
required on the road.
(b) There will often be no taxis at Canberra Airport in the morning. Each weekday the
arrival of planes commences at approximately 8:15 - 8:20 and yet by 8:30 - 8:35, the
available taxis have been reduced to zero and the taxi rank is bare. This occurs almost
every weekday, including non parliamentary sitting weeks. The remaining passengers
that need taxi services generally number 60 - 80 but in peak weeks will be as high as
200 - 250 people. These people are only serviced by the ad-hoc arrival of 1-3 taxis that
might arrive every 1 - 3 minutes. This is not the way that Canberra, as the National
Capital, should be presenting itself at its entry and welcoming point to the city.
The same situation plays itself out during the rest of the day at various other times when
aircraft arrive, including 10:15 - 10:30, 3:00 - 3:30, and 4:30 - 6:00 to differing degrees.
This situation is not caused by poor traffic to the airport (this is now resolved), it is not
caused by the taxi industry withdrawing commissionaires at the Airport, it is not caused
by a lack of drivers; it is simply caused by a lack of taxis in the market place.
It might be said that these problems could be resolved by airport passengers using other
modes of transport including buses or high occupancy taxis. This is simply not correct. The
airport provides a bus and has on different occasions for weeks at a time provided free tickets
to the Airliner bus direct to the city. Given that the bus stop was only 10 metres in front of
the taxi rank, one would expect a modal shift to the bus. This does not occur because
business travellers want a taxi. The reality is that business travellers want to be taken directly
to the address for their meeting, not merely to some bus interchange in the middle of the city
from which they have to face the challenge of navigating to an unknown destination at an
unknown time distance away when they may already be running late for an important
meeting.
Further, whilst the airport has strongly supported the establishment of a HOTS service and
facilitated that through cost free commercial arrangements offered to the taxi industry, the
reality is that this will only improve the situation marginally because business travellers do
not generally wish to multiple hire or share taxis. Business travellers often need to make
telephone calls that are confidential and private in nature. The simple reality is that airport
passengers lined up in the taxi queue want a taxi to take them directly to their destination and
they want the privacy to be able to conduct their business while they are in transit. The
business is there but the taxis are not.
In the Airport’s view many of the issues surrounding the taxi industry arose of the then ACT
Government decision to freeze the issue of taxi plates in 1995 with a result that no taxi plates
were issued for the following 11 years. This action has ultimately resulted in the taxi industry
being unable to meet the demands of users.
However, there are two observations that need to be made in relation to the issuing of the 90
new leased licence plates between 2006 -2008:
1. Despite claims from the taxi industry that the value of taxi plates themselves would
collapse, that the licences would not be taken up and that the industry as a whole would
fall apart, none of these eventualities occurred. In fact, the number of privately held taxi