DRIVE NOW September 2021

TAA Meetings
with relevant industry stakeholders
TAA recently held an Open Forum via Zoom last month to
discuss the future and sustainability of the taxi and hire
car industry in Victoria. Here is a summary of the topics
discussed, for your information.
Transport Alliance Australia – looking after
the interests of those in the Australian
commercial passenger transport sector.
Many of the attendees agreed
that the Victorian regulator –
Commercial Passenger Vehicles
Victoria (CPVV) keeps moving
the goal posts, just to suit its
needs and the wants of the big
operators.
Some even think that CPVV
Compliance Officers don’t really
understand what a Booking
Service Provider (BSP) is, and
what role they have to play in the
Victorian commercial passenger
vehicle CPV industry.
There was a suggestion that
at least one of the CPVV
Commissioners should be
currently in or coming from the
commercial passenger vehicle
industry. On every Board,
there should be social and
environment expertise and good
governance - there’s nothing
like that within the CPVV. None
of the commissioners have
any real-world experience in a
commercial area and only have
experience in a safety arena.
CPVV follows what is printed
in the legislation rather than
considering the situation itself.
We have to have a regulator, and
the governance of it is critical.
Many agreed that the
government needs to increase
the entry fees to be realistic and
reflective of the work carried out
by those who chose to be drivers
and operators.
There are definitely unbalanced
costs between different
commercial passenger vehicles
and some believe that the
regulator should mandate
cameras for all vehicles
or remove the regulation
altogether. But others pointed
out that presently cameras give
taxis sole rights to rank and hail
work – and it becomes difficult
for regulators to keep rideshare
off taxi ranks unless the defining
feature is taxis have cameras and
rideshare don’t.
It seemed unfair that the
recent Business Costs grants
were available for drivers who
may not have been active in
the industry recently. Many
attendees voiced their disgust
that these non-active drivers
would have put their hand out
for the grant. There needs to be
a way to determine who has and
has not been active over the last
six months and, therefore, those
who were inactive will not be
eligible for any future grants.
Medium-sized BSPs are finding
it difficult to control the
compliance of their drivers and
vehicles, yet CPVV won’t step in
and help control it. It seems to
spend a lot of time inspecting
and auditing small BSPs; large
BSPs have the manpower and
rules to be able to enforce
compliance, but the medium
BSP seems to be forgotten.
Perhaps we don’t need the
regulator - perhaps VicPol and
VicRoads would be sufficient?
12 September 2021