DRIVE NOW September 2021

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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
VIEW THIS MEETING If you would like to watch/listen to the recording of this General Meeting, and others, all you need to do is to log into the membership section of TAA’s website at www.taa-national.com.au CPVV needs to step up and be tough but not heavy-handed. CPVV states that they cannot change any of the rules. Of course it can. Just because the regulations (set by the Regulator and Department of Transport) and the legislation (set by parliament) are written, doesn’t mean they cannot be changed. We’ve seen Rod Barton (Leader, Transport Matters Party) do so numerous times over the past two years. Thankfully Rod Barton and Transport Matters Party are batting for us – things can change, and nothing is steadfast. There was a suggestion by an attendee after the meeting (as his internet connection was poor). Passengers need to regain confidence in the taxi industry and be reassured that they will be paying the least possible fare. This could be done if all registered taxi vehicles and drivers were to be linked online to software giving both the driver and passenger the best real-time directions to the passenger’s destination through live traffic updates. All taxi drivers should be joined to industry-wide, online mapping software that is accessed through the taxi industry’s current mobile phone apps, so that all passengers can be confident of getting to their destination using the shortest possible route, which saves customers time and money. Passengers would access the same information the taxi driver obtains through the same mobile phone app from their own phone, which would make communication between drivers and passengers easier. 3-MINUTE SURVEY Transport Alliance Australia is undertaking a survey to better understand what YOU think needs to be done to move forward and ensure a sustainable and profitable Victorian CPV industry. From the results of this survey, TAA will be putting together a list of proposed solutions which will be sent to industry stakeholders to rank in terms of efficacy. We would appreciate you completing this survey. And yes, you will remain completely anonymous. https://www.surveymonkey. com/r/Q63JCR6 Online Australian Training Courses www.drvrtraining.com.au Limousine, Taxi, Hire Car, Ride Share Fatigue Management 23 Lessons | $49.00 Limousine, Taxi, Hire Car, Ride Share COVID-19 Hygiene Awareness for Transport Drivers 22 Lessons | $ FREE www.drivenow-magazine.com.au September 2021 13
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DRIVE NOW September 2021

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