Taxis and bus lanes

AugustusMinimus

Could someone explain the logic of allowing Taxis in this country to use bus lanes ?

IMO, bus lanes are there to promote the usage of mass transit public transport and in other cases to allow cycling which of course reduces traffic overall. How then does allowing taxi drivers, who might only be carrying a single person in the back follow this mantra ?

If anything, it dissuades people with the cash to do so from using a bus and instead use a taxi.

lovelyhurler

Taxis are a form of public transport.
All forms of public transport are allowed use a bus lane.
Technically though, a taxi should only use a bus lane when it has a fare in the vehicle or is on the way to collect a fare.

AugustusMinimus

lovelyhurler wrote: »

Taxis are a form of public transport.
All forms of public transport are allowed use a bus lane.
Technically though, a taxi should only use a bus lane when it has a fare in the vehicle or is on the way to collect a fare.

Indeed it is a form of public transport. But it clogs the roads up just as bad as a private car. Surely the point of bus lanes is promote the mass transit system over a taxi which is essentially a hired form of private transport.

sogood

Hackneys are also a form of public transport but they are prohibited from using the bus lanes. This may or may not be based on the fact that you cannot "hail" a hackney, it must be booked. A taxi can be hailed, and so, may have to pull into a bus lane to stop, so why not use the bus lane in any event?

lovelyhurler

You may have a point, but the next time you need to get somewhere in a hurry, and you're stuck in a taxi, with traffic going nowhere because there's no bus lane, and running late, then please do bemoan the fact that Taxis should or shouldn't be allowed use a bus lane.

AugustusMinimus

lovelyhurler wrote: »

You may have a point, but the next time you need to get somewhere in a hurry, and you're stuck in a taxi, with traffic going nowhere because there's no bus lane, and running late, then please do bemoan the fact that Taxis should or shouldn't be allowed use a bus lane.

Not trying to have a go off of taxi drivers / taxi industry here at all or taxi users. Simply wondering where the logic behind all of this lies.

sogood

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Not trying to have a go off of taxi drivers / taxi industry here at all or taxi users. Simply wondering where the logic behind all of this lies.

There's your problem! You're looking for logic, in relation to anything motor related. Private tour coaches, on tour and not engaged in "public service" per se, are allowed to use the bus lanes also. So, is it a "Bus Lane" or a "Public Service Vehicle Lane"?

I suppose it just makes sense for taxis to use them, but I think the ban on hackneys should be lifted also. There might be more info available on the RSA website.

H3llR4iser

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Not trying to have a go off of taxi drivers / taxi industry here at all or taxi users. Simply wondering where the logic behind all of this lies.

Could the logic be in making the use of public transport advantageous over using a private car (e.g. you get stuck in traffic in your car, while the buses and taxis go by in the dedicated lane)?

Two reasons can stand behind the "hackney ban": for one, they mostly require booking and are therefore not public transport - they'd be no different than, say, hiring a limousine.

Second, they are bound to be slower than motor vehicles, thus forcing buses and taxis to slow down behind them in case a traffic jam makes it impossible to overtake them, therefore voiding the whole point of the bus lane.

Gumbo

i think the clue is in their title, PSV

PS = Public Service.

AugustusMinimus

Everyone here is telling me that they are public transport vehicles, but no one is telling me the logic behind why they are allowed in bus lanes considering the whole point of bus lanes is promote mass public transport in order to reduce congestion.

Using a taxi clearly doesn't promote the use of mass transport or reduce congestion.

Yakuza

H3llR4iser wrote: »

Second, they are bound to be slower than motor vehicles, thus forcing buses and taxis to slow down behind them in case a traffic jam makes it impossible to overtake them, therefore voiding the whole point of the bus lane.

I don't get what you're trying to say. Why would a hackney be any slower than a taxi? I never saw the point of banning Hackneys from bus lanes, they're doing the same job as a taxi; bringing someone from A to B.

Perhaps one reason for facilitating taxis in bus lanes is to keep the flow of taxis fluid. The difference between someone using their car and a taxi is that they're not taking up a parking spot for 8-9 hours. DCC want people to be able to drive into the city for a few hours, do their business and then drive out again. If fewer parking spaces are taken up all day by commuters, then the people driving in in the middle of the day to transact some business will have an easier time finding a spot. There is a 3-hour limit on parking, but I've never seen it enforced by clampers - if you're paid up when they check you, they don't seem to mind.

Therefore, by allowing taxis to use bus lanes, more people might be inclined to jump into a cab rather than use their car as they'll get to their destination faster (and it could be cheaper than paying for parking too).

corktina

It doesn't make sense to ban taxis from bus lanes. All that would happen is the traffic in the other lanes would be worse and there would be a call for more taxis on the streets as most of them would be stuck in jams. More public transport of all types and less cars is the way to reduce congestion

djimi

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Everyone here is telling me that they are public transport vehicles, but no one is telling me the logic behind why they are allowed in bus lanes considering the whole point of bus lanes is promote mass public transport in order to reduce congestion.

Using a taxi clearly doesn't promote the use of mass transport or reduce congestion.

It gets them out of the main driving lane and eases congestion somewhat. Personally I dont care why they are allowed to use bus lanes; all I care about is its less cars on the road when I trying to get from A to B.

AugustusMinimus

djimi wrote: »

It gets them out of the main driving lane and eases congestion somewhat. Personally I dont care why they are allowed to use bus lanes; all I care about is its less cars on the road when I trying to get from A to B.

Maybe it would make things even better if there were no bus lanes at all on this basis ?

djimi

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Maybe it would make things even better if there were no bus lanes at all on this basis ?

How would that make things better?

Caliden

It still amazes me how many people don't drive on the bus lanes outside of the bus lanes hours on the north side of the quays in particular. I must have went past about 50-80 cars yesterday about 3pm.

Oh well, the less people that do it, the more time I save.

H3llR4iser

Yakuza wrote: »

I don't get what you're trying to say. Why would a hackney be any slower than a taxi? I never saw the point of banning Hackneys from bus lanes, they're doing the same job as a taxi; bringing someone from A to B.

Are we talking about the same thing here? Is a hackney a small horse-driven vehicle? If that's the case, I have never seen any doing 50 km/h and could easily imagine a queue of buses and taxis stuck behind one of them...

corktina

no, Hackney nowadays is a Private Hire vehicle as I understand it

AugustusMinimus

djimi wrote: »

How would that make things better?

Better for private cars.

djimi

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Better for private cars.

You mean just have the bus lane as an additional lane? Maybe it would, however the bus lane often isnt a complete lane, and it would create the additional issue of having more lanes of cars trying to merge etc when the lane ends.

It works well as it is, I dont really see the issue or why there would be any need to change it much.

Yakuza

H3llR4iser wrote: »

Are we talking about the same thing here? Is a hackney a small horse-driven vehicle? If that's the case, I have never seen any doing 50 km/h and could easily imagine a queue of buses and taxis stuck behind one of them...

Yes, we were at cross purposes
In the context of this thread, a hackney is a car from a company that you call yourself. They don't have a plate on the outside and they're not allowed ply for business on the street.

Your definition is also correct, but not what we're talking about in this thread

Muahahaha

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Everyone here is telling me that they are public transport vehicles, but no one is telling me the logic behind why they are allowed in bus lanes considering the whole point of bus lanes is promote mass public transport in order to reduce congestion.

Using a taxi clearly doesn't promote the use of mass transport or reduce congestion.

No it doesn't but perhaps consider that the system may be set up to work in a different way to which you think it should ? Fact of the matter is that if taxis couldn't use the bus lane then there would be zero advantage to taking one. So then what happens is tons of taxi men go out of business because now everyone takes the bus because it is quicker than sitting in a taxi in traffic. So under your system of not allowing them to use bus lanes you effectively put them out of business.

So what happens then at 11.30am when the last Dublin Bus has left the city centre ? You won't be able to get a taxi because not letting them use the bus lanes has put most of them out of business. Now we're back to the 1990s when there was so few taxis on the road that people used to walk home several miles after a night out because they couldn't get a taxi. No thanks OP..

If too many taxis are congesting the streets it's because of the failure of how deregulation was implemented. Dublin went from having 1000 taxis to 45,000 in the space of a few short years. Clearly 45,000 taxis is way too much to serve a population of 1.2m, But that's the situation the Taxi Regulator has left us in. I often drive through Temple Bar late on a Fri/Sat and on a few occasions have had to get off my motorbike and walk up to taxis stopped and blocking up the whole street to move on as they sit there and pretend it is a taxi rank. The largest traffic jams in Dublin city center these days are not at 'rush hour' but at 2am on a Friday and Saturday night. Sometimes a 1km journey from Camden Street to Dame Street can take 20 minutes in a car on a weekend night because of the thousands of empty taxis clogging up the streets. But that's not the taxis fault, they are just trying to make a living, the blame is firmly at the hands of the Dept of Transport and the Taxi Regulator who deregulated the taxi industry and landed us with a free for all with taxis.

H3llR4iser

Yakuza wrote: »

Yes, we were at cross purposes
In the context of this thread, a hackney is a car from a company that you call yourself. They don't have a plate on the outside and they're not allowed ply for business on the street.

Your definition is also correct, but not what we're talking about in this thread

:D:D:D:D:D:D:D

Truth be told, in order to find it listed as "car for hire", I had to make a specific search since all sources simply point to the horse driven vehicles.

It has to be said - the whole "horse carts should be allowed in bus lanes" made sense to me because we're talking about Ireland

That said, "private hire cars" are just that...private. Same concept as a limousine; Can't see why they should be considered public service - and one can always call a proper taxi if in a rush...

Gumbo

corktina wrote: »

no, Hackney nowadays is a Private Hire vehicle as I understand it

And i think you'd struggle to find any in Dublin nowadays. Most Hackney drivers years ago just done it to save to buy the PSV plate. Then every single hackney owner i know bought a PSV plate on de-regulation, and i know quite a few

mgbgt1978

lovelyhurler wrote: »

Taxis are a form of public transport.
All forms of public transport are allowed use a bus lane.
Technically though, a taxi should only use a bus lane when it has a fare in the vehicle or is on the way to collect a fare.

Wrong there I'm afraid;
A taxi can use a normal (with-flow) bus lane only while it is operating as an SPSV – carrying a passenger, on the way to pick up a pre-booked customer, or plying for hire.

http://www.nationaltransport.ie/taxi-and-bus-licensing/taxi/operating-an-spsv/bus-lanes/

Jesus.

AugustusMinimus wrote: »

Indeed it is a form of public transport. But it clogs the roads up just as bad as a private car. Surely the point of bus lanes is promote the mass transit system over a taxi which is essentially a hired form of private transport.

Your logic appears back to front to me. If taxis weren't allowed to use bus lanes, then they'd be clogging up the roads. Right?

Surely allowing them use the bus lanes, if anything, helps unclog the roads???

visual

Make more sence to do away with the bus lanes altogether then everyone could get to work and home quicker.

I had the misfortune to have my car off the road for a few day and used taxi

in car it was a 40 to 50 min trip across the city
by taxi quickest was 1hr

the found every conceivable traffic jam possible
Bus lanes only speeded them up to get back for next fair.

If you look at any taxi speeding in bus lane its empty once they got a fair its the slowest means of transport.

ironclaw

visual wrote: »

If you look at any taxi speeding in bus lane its empty once they got a fair its the slowest means of transport.

There is a flow chart for these situations, its on every taxi dash.

djimi

visual wrote: »

Make more sence to do away with the bus lanes altogether then everyone could get to work and home quicker.

I had the misfortune to have my car off the road for a few day and used taxi

in car it was a 40 to 50 min trip across the city
by taxi quickest was 1hr

the found every conceivable traffic jam possible
Bus lanes only speeded them up to get back for next fair.

If you look at any taxi speeding in bus lane its empty once they got a fair its the slowest means of transport.

I remember having to inform a taxi driver that he was taking me the long route home one night, and that if he continued on that route I would not be paying him for the extended journey (he had picked me up from a club and I dont think he realised that I was sober!). It pays to keep an eye on where they are going...

Days 298

Whats the story with undertaking buses and taxis. Every morning without fail I am on a free flowing city road going 50 km/h and somehow these buses and taxis allways blow past. If the bus lane wasnt there, there would be two lanes clearing the road for everyone and would force them to obey speedlimits around the city. The road I am taking about is outside UCC.

Also can an ordinary joe ie me undertake in these lanes outside operating hours much like taxis....