Becoming a Hackney Driver

Carb

After several weekends of not been able to get home due to a scarcity of taxis, I'm considering of starting a hackney company. (Building a house at the moment so can't afford to go out now anyway). This is in a town in the North East. Has anyone done this or has anyone any info on the following questions?

How do you get a PSV Licence and is it diifficult.
What is the procedure for getting a hackney licence for your car and is there anything I should watch out for.
What are insurance costs like?
Is motor taxation the same?

Any advice would be much appreciated

the_syco

I think it costs €300 or so to get the Hackney tab on your car.

EducatedGuess

To get your PSV licence you must apply for one through yourl ocal motor tax office [same as you would for a normal licence] then you take your application to your local garda station and a check is done on any convictions. If that comes back clear you will be given a date for the next PSV test, these come around every 3/4 months or so. You must be over 23 years of age to obtain one.

Martin A.Hughes

Does anyone know what areas you can work with a hackney psv licence? Is it a national licence - eg: If I do my test in louth can i work in dublin or am I limited to working within a certain jurisdiction?

axer

There is some information here:
http://www.taxi.ie/applying-taxi-license-Dublin.shtml

ToxicPaddy

Any taxi or hackney insurance is crazy when you first start. I've heard of
people being quoted €9k starting off for insurance but its starts to drop
almost halving every year after that.

I know a few people who made attempts at doing the same as yourself and
found that while weekends are great, mid week business can be non existant.

The ones who have succeeded did the following:

Start a partnership with a few guys, 3 or 4, all of whom buy their own cars
and have hackney licences. Get a small office in the centre or the town,
nothing too flash and have an operator working there during the peak times,
weekends, bank holidays etc, when closing the office during the week have
the number redirected to a mobile no or 2 and use this for business.

Basically, mid week one guy would work a 12 hour shift and this would rotate
between all the drivers. On weekends they were all on and maybe had 1 or 2
temp drivers who would work part time, paying a set fee for working and
keeping whatever takings they made on a night out.

On weekends they would use a mini bus rather than car as they could take
up to 15 people at a time and do a big drop charging everyone say a €6 and
this could take an 45 mins but in the countryside where runs can take time
you could really make money this way and people can group book the bus to
collect them and drop them home for a set fee..

These guys who did it ran quite a successful business for a few years but
over time some of the sold up and moved to other businesses due to the
unsociable hours involved however by their own admission it was definitely
worth doing.

Make sure you do your research, as with the new taxi regulator and all the new
rules coming into play you might find yourself being seriously caught out financially
if they make any big changes.

What I would suggest is that you do some cosy work for a few months for a
local company and see what you think of it. You might decide that after a month
or two its just not worth it and at least all you have to do then is flog a car and
walk away.

Tox