Irish Taxi Forum
Public Area => Taxi Talk => Topic started by: Rat Catcher on March 24, 2020, 02:14:58 pm
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For years taxi drivers (mostly post deregulation scum) wanted be be recognised as part of the public transport service. Now that we have a virus should Free Now be retained to provide Small Public Service Vehicles and, if so, should emergency legislation be enacted to allow it use private cars to guarantee availability of the service and lower the cost to the public during these trying times?
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Rat .when will you accept free now,like all other dispatcher firms DO NOT provide cars.owner drivers/ renter drivers provide the service.why do you keep giving them the credit for prividing the service ?
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For years taxi drivers (mostly post deregulation scum) wanted be be recognised as part of the public transport service. Now that we have a virus should Free Now be retained to provide Small Public Service Vehicles and, if so, should emergency legislation be enacted to allow it use private cars to guarantee availability of the service and lower the cost to the public during these trying times?
That's Uber.
You're welcome.
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Free Now decide who gets it's work, DM. When a passenger orders a taxi Free Now allocate the job to whatever taxi, hackney or clapped out shitebox masquerading as a limousine it wants. The question is should it be allowed add private cars to it's fleet to ensure the public have a service and/or to reduce fare for essential workers and others who still need to get from A to B?
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Free Now decide who gets it's work, DM. When a passenger orders a taxi Free Now allocate the job to whatever taxi, hackney or clapped out shitebox masquerading as a limousine it wants. The question is should it be allowed add private cars to it's fleet to ensure the public have a service and/or to reduce fare for essential workers and others who still need to get from A to B?
And those who can't cook.
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Welcome to the second edition of our quarterly newsletter. I am thrilled to share some exciting updates with you, including survey results, renewed partnerships, and the launch of a new fleet.
First, a big thank you to everyone who applied for our Driver Advisory Committee. We had an incredible response, and all drivers who reached out have now been contacted. The first meeting is set for March, and I’m looking forward to working closely with the group to bring your feedback into our plans.
We also want to acknowledge the feedback you shared in our recent survey about the new discounted fleet. Many of you raised concerns, and we appreciate your honesty in helping shape our approach. We know demand has slowed since the fare increase, as highlighted in our January’s survey, and we’re committed to addressing the key points raised. We believe this initiative is a viable option to stimulate bookings, and we’ll be supporting drivers with multiple quests throughout March to help boost earnings while demand picks up. More details on this below.
INTRODUCING TAXI SAVER: MORE TRIPS, LESS WAITING
After careful consideration, we have decided to launch a new fleet called Taxi Saver, designed to help increase the number of jobs coming on the app by offering passengers a €3 discount on their fare. To make this work, drivers in the fleet won’t add the usual €3 booking fee.
We’ve listened to your feedback and made adjustments to support you:
LESS UNPAID WAITING TIME
The meter will now start after just 2 minutes instead of 5, adding between €1.41 and €2.34 per trip if the passenger is late.
NO PREBOOKS OR AIRPORT TRIPS
No prebooks or Dublin Airport trips will be included in this fleet.
OFF-PEAK HOURS ONLY
Available only during off-peak times to ensure it complements your existing earnings.
To make these jobs more attractive, we’ll be offering drivers regular bonuses. We ran a test this month with a similar discount and saw a 19% increase in passengers booking a trip - showing that this approach can help drive more business.
Drivers who participated in our survey and indicated they’re not interested will automatically be opted out from the launch.
Joining this new fleet is completely optional, and you’ll remain in your current fleets regardless. If you’d prefer not to be part of this new fleet, you can opt out [here]. And if you don’t want to decide right now—you can give it a try and if you find it’s not for you, you’ll be able to opt out at any time.
EV GRANT AND TESLA PARTNERSHIP
If you’ve been considering switching to an electric vehicle, now is the perfect time. The eSPSV Grant scheme is now open, funded by the Department of Transport and administered by NTA, and provides financial support for taxi drivers to make the switch. In order to check how much you could save on operating an EV you can download the TRACT EV app developed by Trinity College Dublin's School of Engineering. Powered by cutting-edge technology and backed by research, the TRACT EV app is designed to empower drivers to make informed choices about your transportation habits.
We’re also excited to announce the renewal of our partnership with Tesla, ensuring FREENOW partner drivers continue to benefit from exclusive discounts on selected Tesla models. Through this partnership, our driver-partners can save up to €5,400 off the list price of a Tesla vehicle. When combined with the eSPSV grant scheme, this can reduce the cost of switching to a new electric taxi by up to €35,700. This partnership offers a fantastic opportunity to lower running costs and upgrade to a premium electric vehicle.
To give you a feel for the cars, Tesla will be hosting exclusive test drive events for FREENOW driver partners. Don't miss this chance to experience Tesla vehicles firsthand. Register your interest by clicking the link below.
REGISTER INTEREST
NTA REVIEW OF THE AREA KNOWLEDGE TEST
I was recently invited to a meeting at the National Transport Authority (NTA) alongside other operators to discuss a review of the Area Knowledge module of the SPSV Driver Entry Test. This review was announced in the recent Programme for Government and has been long campaigned for by the “Taxis for Ireland Coalition”. As i’m sure many of you know, the Coalition (led by Uber and Bolt) are calling for a major deregulation of the taxi industry in order to achieve a 30% growth in drivers by 2027 - getting rid, or drastically reducing the difficulty, of the Area Knowledge module is a key aim for how the Coalition aims to achieve this.
The NTA had 3 meetings on this topic covering drivers, operators and passengers. I attended the operator meeting on behalf of FREENOW. We will actively participate in the NTA's review process and advocate for the interests of our drivers.
We at FREENOW fundamentally disagree with the position of the Coalition and believe that deregulation poses a serious threat to the livelihoods of existing taxi drivers. Here's why we oppose deregulation, and although we are in favour of modernising the Area Knowledge Test, are still supportive of it:
DRIVER INCOME
Increasing the number of drivers by 30% in less than two years will drastically reduce the number of fares available per driver, making it extremely difficult to earn a sustainable income.
PASSENGER SAFETY
The Area Knowledge Test ensures drivers have a fundamental understanding of their service area, contributing to passenger safety and efficient navigation. Weakening this requirement could compromise passenger experience and safety.
PROFESSIONALISM
The Area Knowledge Test demonstrates a commitment to professionalism and a deeper understanding of the taxi service. Removing or reducing this requirement undermines the value and expertise of professional taxi drivers.
SURVEY RESULTS
Thank you to everyone who participated in our recent driver survey! We were thrilled to receive nearly double the responses compared to our last survey, giving us valuable insights into your experiences and opinions. Here's a snapshot of what you shared:
TRENDS:
Satisfaction with FREENOW: Over 50% of drivers expressed satisfaction with the support FREENOW provides to the Irish Driver Community. We will continue to stand with our driver partners in opposition to de-regulation and campaign for the issues that matter most to you.
KEY INSIGHTS:
Strong Disagreement with License Increase: A resounding 70% of drivers disagree with the Taxi for Ireland coalition's proposal for a 30% increase in licenses.
Electric Vehicle Hesitation: 75% of drivers have expressed that they are not planning to switch to an electric vehicle, citing costs among other reasons. We aim to address this concern through our partnership with Tesla and sharing the financial benefits of making the switch.
Loyalty Scheme Understanding: We're pleased to see that 80% of drivers understand our loyalty scheme. We want to bring this number even higher, and make it work for all drivers.
NTA Fare Increase Impact: Over 34% of drivers felt that the NTA fare increase had a noticeable negative effect on demand.
We appreciate all the feedback you provided, and read each individual comment. We're carefully considering these insights as we plan for the future and are already actively working on improvements based on your input. Stay tuned for exciting updates!
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This is exactly what they used to do, put out a survey and say we were onboard with offering discounts.I doubt one driver asked to be part of their discount offering.It's only quiet on Freenow for me ,Uber and Bolt still has a bit of work.
They screwed themselves and now want drivers to take a hit to make up for their mistakes.Sad to see them go..
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HEIL-O has rebranded to FREI NOW and expects drivers to drop the PUC.
Clapped-out shite-boxes doing work at massively discounted rates is returning to the price wars started by Ebbs, followed by Kearns plus NRC.
The economy is not in freefall it's simply JAN/FEB/MARCH, then business picks back up.
Leave Uber on top of the phone, or even BOLT and HOLA or C2K. FFN!! >:D
(https://i.postimg.cc/257L481W/SWAS.webp) (https://postimg.cc/nsMLxxYV)
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member durin the locker.
half price fares. gas stuff altogether.
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member durin the locker.
half price fares. gas stuff altogether.
5 euro to bring hospital workers as far as I remember ....an get infected ....
I can't wait to hear wat wurzel gummage is going to say ...
" thank you for yur feedback " ....they say .... I don't remember gettin fukin asked..
Ther basically sayin yis asked for it it's not ther decision .....
. For me this is delete the app .... I'm kinda relieved....I'm fuking sick of them
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Satisfaction with FREENOW: Over 50% of drivers expressed satisfaction with the support FREENOW provides to the Irish Driver Community.
rofl rofl rofl
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I'm after downloading the ape app .... no mention of fuc the puc .... is ther a time and date wen they bringing in this bollix ?
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" STAY TUNED FOR EXCITING UPDATES "
can't fukin wait .... ::fds
Did ya ever hear such bollixes in yur life ::fds
It's like have a phycho wife ..... " I'll make ya a lovely dinner tonite honey .... sorry for hittin ya wit the hammer last nite but you made me angry .....
an then she hands ya the cat roasted on a plate....
Ther fuking nut jobs ::fds
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Thing is, they have gazillions of data on driver habits, they must reckon that enough of this will be covered to take enough work from Uber. Problem with Uber work for me is that my finger isn't quick enough. I'ld say that I get less than 50% of the jobs I try for.
In order to get around this if things get bad, I might have to change from 40 odd hours of 19.00-02.00 all week i.e. 7 hours per night to 4 x 10 hour shifts Thurs-Sun, and rest on Mon/Tues/Wed
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Thing is, they have gazillions of data on driver habits, they must reckon that enough of this will be covered to take enough work from Uber. Problem with Uber work for me is that my finger isn't quick enough. I'ld say that I get less than 50% of the jobs I try for.
In order to get around this if things get bad, I might have to change from 40 odd hours of 19.00-02.00 all week i.e. 7 hours per night to 4 x 10 hour shifts Thurs-Sun, and rest on Mon/Tues/Wed
They may be forgettin somethin ... uber is taking a bigger share of jobs the past year ....why ? .... feenow got greedy ...
now they want drivers to take a big cut to hault the exit to uber because of feenows overcharging ....
If drivers do these no puc jobs uber will be forced to do the same or something similar ..... a race to the bottom wer all drivers lose .
. At wat point will that race to the bottom end ?
I'm out ...
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To be fair, my takings are down year on year for the second year in a row so one can understand why Free Now is seeking to stimulate demand.
The suggestion that the planned discounts will equate to a 19% increase in demand isn't an easy one to assess. Obviously some proportion of that will simply be moving existing demand from other ride-sharing platforms. If we take the full 19% at face value or base our analysis on the assumption that one works exclusively for Free Now the break even fare works out at €18.xx - 5 fares @ €18 = €90, 6 fares @ €15 = €90 - for drivers. For Free Now the break even fare is €8.xx - 5 fares @ €9 = €14.25 (€7.50 Technology Fee + €6.75 commission), 6 fares @ €6 = €14.40 (€9.00 Technology Fee + €5.40 commission).
Hence, it's clear that the benefit to the firm far outweighs any benefit to drivers.
The rest of the nonsense posted by BS is just that, nonsense... or BS, if you prefer! Are they suggesting that they employ incompetent oafs in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is, of course, always worth remembering that they vowed never to use PHVs in London... Twice! Their corporate philosophy is clearly based on the belief that they can fool some of the people all of the time.
The only interesting statistic is that 75% of drivers have no interest in converting to EVs. I would have thought that figure would be closer to 60%.
Obviously, taxis are relatively expensive, particularly in rural areas where clients are essentially charged Temple Bar rates to get home from the bar or down to the station. We can trace that regime back to entry liberalisation itself. Prior to that we had a significant hackney market which provided a cheaper option to clients who didn't need to use bus lanes and weren't bothered by the year in which their "taxi" was first registered. Maybe we need to return to something along those lines, perhaps with taxi licences restricted to EVs less than 3 years old and hackney plates available to all other participants in respect of any car that passes it's NCTS inspection?
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I'm not so sure taxis are as expensive as we think.Ireland is expensive.I think we're close enough on price to other big cities and cheaper in cities that have surge pricing.The fact that Freenow add a €1.50 tech fee to every fare isn't helping keep the cost down.
If they're quieter than before it's because they have more drivers and passengers using their competitors.
They really don't have any advantage over their competitors anymore.
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Free Now operates surge pricing. In fact a rock star recently reported being charged c.€40 for "Premium Services" up above in Dublin. Fares probably do compare favourably to big cities in other jurisdictions (not Belfast where licensed taxis are very cheap and there's no ride-sharing platforms) but many of those have cheaper options. For example, in London, you can hire a clapped out Prius from Free Now for a fraction of the fare a Black Cab would charge, even without bringing you "round the 'ouses"!
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They can push the prices down in the UK because there's no real barrier to entry which leaves them a bit more desperate than us and will work for less.We might get back there eventually but that's not our situation yet..
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Their actions suggest that's where they'd like to be. Given the lobbying funds available to them and other ride-sharing platforms that mightn't be as far fetched as we might like to think. Personally, I don't really care. I'd be happy enough to drive a hack if there were no vehicle age limits at this stage of my life. Lower fares with higher expenses probably won't be for me but we're all free to do other stuff and leave it to the 1st generation immigrants, I guess.
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In November 2023, The Examiner reported (https://www.irishexaminer.com/business/companies/arid-41279017.html) on FN's 2022 annual report:
[FreeNow] reported a cash balance of more than €20.8m, up significantly from just over €14m in 2021, with net current assets also up by more than €4m to €14.9m following efforts to restrucuture its costs.
The directors said they expect the company to stay in a profit position while still investing into the current business models to increase their activity in Ireland.
At the end of December 2022, the firm’s shareholder funds stood at €15.8m which included accumulated profits of €4.31m, up from €2.09m a year earlier.
So FN Ireland is hardly poor but they probably have orders from Germany to increase sales/profits by a few percentage points every year.
In Oct 2024, The Indo reported (https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/profits-rise-to-54m-at-the-irish-arm-of-taxi-app-freenow/a615249203.html):
FreeNow chief executive Thomas Zimmermann said this week at a conference in Munich that the taxi app company has now reached breakeven, 13 years after it was launched.
“With a clear focus on the cab business, we have reached break-even,” he said.
“Achieving break-even is a first substantial step and proves the efficacy of our taxi-first strategy,” he added this week “We are dedicated to our vision, prioritising growth and sustained profitability in Europe.”
In Germany, which is one of FreeNow’s biggest markets, the company has seen strong growth in demand for taxis, especially after introducing fixed-price fares in Berlin and Munich.
So how do they 'increase growth and profitability' in an Irish market where they probably have all the taxi drivers they're gonna get (market share on one side of the equation) while they're getting beaten up by rival apps for passengers (market share on the other side of the equation)?
They can't make the taxis nicer or faster nor the drivers more polite or smell better since they can't really control us that much (Embassadors excepted). So they have to target the other side - passengers - and they must have the historical data by now on what works and doesn't to get passengers to use FN daytime, weekend days, and night-time. I guess slashing fares works for them. Ultimately, it's the old Quality vs. Quantity argument. Better to get a small slice of a lot of fares (and work us to the bone) versus a big slice of a small number of fares (quality)?
Now they just have to figure out how to get us to work more jobs per hour for less money! Dare I say, "Arbeit macht frei" (works set one free) as discounted fares become mainstream :P
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I don't think they're getting that much less though.The €1.50 tech fee more than compesates Freenow for the 45 cent the lose in commission,while the driver loses 2.55 per job.
They waited all this time to reduce the free waiting form 5 to 2 minutes.Something I've been moaning about for at least 5 years.I went to three minutes a few years ago as I thought 5 was way too long.They've no right to tell us when we can start the meter.
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I don't think they're getting that much less though.The €1.50 tech fee more than compesates Freenow for the 45 cent the lose in commission,while the driver loses 2.55 per job.
They waited all this time to reduce the free waiting form 5 to 2 minutes.Something I've been moaning about for at least 5 years.I went to three minutes a few years ago as I thought 5 was way too long.They've no right to tell us when we can start the meter.
Start the meter wen yu arrive merc .... tink it was Ken put up the nta rules fews ago that said Meter on at arrival of pic up ....... I've bean doin it ever since on all apps ....
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I was thinking cheaper for the customer, not the accounting tricks they pull behind the scenes to screw us out of money. They have all the drivers they're gonna get so they can mostly ignore us for the moment.
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lads,for your self respect going forward,do not touch those new yellow pack jobs,it accelerates the race to the bottom to warp factor,the puc is the only thing that makes a lot of daytime jobs worth doing.
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Hard to consider taking one below €20 estimate... but will they be labeled or will we just be told after pick up?
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The puc covers the commission so without it you're pissing against the wind.
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Probably more about maintaining margins, Watty. Takings are down year on year for the second year in a row for me... as are the tourism numbers. Add to that reduced market share due to charging the highest fares in the market and something has to give.
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Someone sent me this on What's Application:
(https://i.postimg.cc/k5wxzsnP/IMG-20250227-WA0001.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/gwXX6vXg)
... presumably to make me feel better about my own takings being down...
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Ther will be no American tourists this year ... I tink yis all realise that ...
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Ther will be no American tourists this year ... I tink yis all realise that ...
Are they all staying at home to make Merica great again?
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I don't think they're getting that much less though.The €1.50 tech fee more than compesates Freenow for the 45 cent the lose in commission,while the driver loses 2.55 per job.
They waited all this time to reduce the free waiting form 5 to 2 minutes.Something I've been moaning about for at least 5 years.I went to three minutes a few years ago as I thought 5 was way too long.They've no right to tell us when we can start the meter.
I recently took a free now taxi and the technology fee charged on my invoice is €3, not 1.50
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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We do now, Octy. I see our halfwit has been invited to the White House to lick some arseholes.
€3 is probably on the low side, MK. A rock star recently reported being charged c.€40 for "premium services" up above in Dublin by Free Now.