For us St. David's folk, we're not important enough to deserve decent service when it comes to transportation. Try taking a bus outside daytime hours and you'll quickly find that they stop at about 6pm. Try taking a taxi, and they'll tell you they'll send one. Two to three calls later and they tell you that they called a taxi in St. Georges who refuses to go to St. David's.
I have lost all respect for taxi drivers. While some are friendly and nice, those who refuse a fare based upon discrimination against those who live in St. David's is ridiculous. It happens far too often.
Ha, and I thought it was just paget that took 5 calls and 3 hours to get a taxi!
Seriously, the last time I called for a taxi was at 9pm on a Thursday a few weeks ago. Apart from the fact that radio cabs didn't answer their phone a single time between 9 and 12, the other taxi services (BDA Taxi Assn and BIU Taxi) kept telling me that there were no taxis in the area. I was trying to go from Paget to Warwick - any taxi heading west could have made a quick fare as the ride was literally 6 minutes!! (Oh, and it was raining or else I would have walked).
I am not sure how many taxi licenses there are in Bermuda, but I do believe that they have to be on the road a minimum of 40 or so hours a week. I have a suspicion that a large number of taxi drivers only drive part time, which is something that GPS records should be able to verify or deny. But what are the chances that there is any sort of useful GPS data when the cabbies arent even required to turn the unit on, and when the largest dispatcher is still not in compliance.
Imagine this: all the taxis and dispatchers use the GPS to its full extent. The consequences: a massive improvement in the logistics of every dispatcher, resulting in more cab fares for the drivers, less waiting times for the customers, and reliable data that could be studied for further imporvements on a national scale. But what are the chances of that ever happening...
Posted by: Andrew | July 11, 2007 at 07:26 AM