Nottingham’s green taxis scrapped for black and white models

taxi-nottingham
Nottingham's older green taxis are being replaced by black and white models.
By Kit Sandeman, Local Democracy Reporter

Nottingham’s green taxis are to become a thing of the past, the City Council has decided.

New black and white taxis, which are already being brought in, will soon become the standard, and by 2020, the green Hackney carriages will disappear altogether.

The change comes as the city prepares for the new government-imposed Clean Air Zone (CAZ) which will mean HGVs, vans, buses and taxis will have to meet tough new emission standards.

Final details of the new CAZ are yet to be decided, and it is has not been announced whether the scheme will include charges for vehicles which don’t meet the rules.

Currently, 406 of the city’s 411 green cabs do not meet the new standards, meaning almost all will have to be replaced.

The new taxis start at around £50,000, and are equipped with Wi-Fi and contactless charging.

Many of the manufacturers of the new taxi fleet do not make vehicles in green. This would mean that after the initial investment, cabbies would then have to pay around £2,000 to have the vehicle re-sprayed.

Councillors at Friday’s meeting (March 16) felt this was an unreasonable request.

Instead, the taxis will be black, and will have a large white Nottingham coat of arms on the bonnet to help distinguish them from private hire vehicles and cabs from other parts of the country.

All taxis will use an app called MyTaxi, which enables passengers to hail a taxi from their phone. It also means the cabbie can see the essential details about the customer, and the passenger can find out who their driver is.

Richard Antcliff, head of licensing at the Labour-run Nottingham City Council, said the new, more efficient vehicles, were likely to create fuel savings of around £120 per driver, while the leasing costs of the vehicle would be around £150.

Video: The MyTaxi app launched officially in Nottingham on March 1

The council also agreed to relax the rules on advertising, meaning more of the surface area of the taxi can be used for adverts, which Mr Antcliff said could generate additional income for taxi drivers.

He said: “In terms of a reputational issue, there is a negative stigma attached to the green Hackney cabs at the moment, when you look at the comments throughout social media, there’s a lot of myths around the fare and the charging rate, it is quite a tarnished brand, so the idea of going from green to black is almost to try and re-boost their image. It’s a brand refresh and re-launch.

“Of course it’s going to take a while to get a few black vehicles so we can see what they look like en masse.”

Councillor Toby Neal represents the Berridge ward for Labour, and is the portfolio holder for community and customer services.

He said: “This has been put together with a huge amount of input from the trade over the last couple of years, and the recognition from the trade has been that they are in a very difficult time at the moment. It is hard to get the fares, and the options available to them in the future if we don’t address the concerns are, effectively, a dead business in the city.

“We are making a demand of them that is pretty substantial in terms of investment in vehicles, and I don’t think we should load up additional cost in terms of colouring on it.

“We have always had among the most stringent safety rules for our drivers, and frankly the areas that we’re starting to fall down on are the quality of our vehicles and the presentation of those vehicles.”

Kaleem Ashraf, 35, from Beeston, has been driving Hackney cabs for eight years, and is one of the first cabbies to trial the new black taxis.

He said: “It’s been brilliant, the MyTaxi app has really helped the trade, we have been able to do return jobs as well instead of just returning to the rank. What used to take me three hours to earn, I make in about an hour and a half.”

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