I'm sure we'll all agree with the inevitable ENews commenters...
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
"Civil servants handed £1.4m taxi allowance for city trips"
(13 posts)-
Posted 12 years ago #
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This will confuse the heck out of the commenters:
"“But the default should always be to use public transport or walking and cycling to get about, because this is taxpayers’ money, and because of the benefit to both their health and the environment.”"
Posted 12 years ago # -
What's confusing about that statement? It makes sense in the context of the preceding sentence.
Posted 12 years ago # -
If the requirement to travel is so great, they should organise a shuttle bus service. Our work, and quite a few of the large employers with offices spread across city, do this. You can get a single decker bus between the 2 main sites during the business day, every 15 minutes or so and they have a number of Transit-van sized minibuses going into town and out to airport on a slightly more relaxed timetable, but you can get where you are going and journeys are pooled. It's far cheaper taking 8 or 9 people going to 8 or 9 different meetings into town in one minbus than it is to let them each make their own taxi arrangements.
If Civil Servants have a complete inability to walk from front door of their offices to the stop of the no. 22 bus, they could run a minibus between Victoria Quay and St. Andrew House, taking many unnecessary taxi journeys off the road and saving taxpayer's some money.
Posted 12 years ago # -
"
SCPHRP (@SCPHRP)
13/07/2012 08:35
Photo: Ecuadorian public officers go to their workplace by bike to create a new culture of sports and mobility #cyclingEcuador's Foreign Ministry officers cycle to their workplace in Quito July 12, 2012. Ecuador's Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino, along with vice ministers and more than 100 officers from the Foreign Ministry, have taken to cycling for 3 months to encourage public officers to create a new culture of sports and mobility, according to the Foreign Ministry. REUTERS/Gary Granja (ECUADOR - Tags: SPORT CYCLING POLITICS SOCIETY HEALTH)
Posted 12 years ago # -
"What's confusing about that statement? It makes sense in the context of the preceding sentence."
I was thinking in the sense of 'civil servants spending money grrrr!' reaction, then being told that one of the solutions is cycling so competing with the 'we hate cyclists grrrr and why do people always try to make us give up our cars grrrr!' reaction.
The statement itself makes perfect sense.
My humour was just too subtle/poor.... ;)
Posted 12 years ago # -
The alternative headline would have been "Civil servants spend hours on public transport when they could have got a quicker taxi to go to meetings across town". Particularly when a number are travelling, it can make sense to take a taxi (when you add in the time savings, or you are carrying equipment), and there are taxi sharing schemes available. Haters just love to hate. Personally, I've taken one taxi in the last year on this contract, the bus to VQ more than 10 times, but tend to drive to Saughton. With laptop, papers etc, its just not practical to try and stuff a suit and shirt in my pannier briefcase as well.
Posted 12 years ago # -
£1.4 million is a lot of taxi trips.
If there's that much demand to be moving people around the place, I'm pretty sure taxis won't be the most efficient and cost-effective way of doing it.
Posted 12 years ago # -
really you need a full breakdown on the data to make a judgement on whats best.
5 people on a taxi can be cheaper than the bus.
the reason for the journey,distance,available buses etc
for many journeys i bet the difference in time of bus V taxi is negligable.Posted 12 years ago # -
If the Scottish Government has indeed ordered a presumption against taxi journeys - then I'd hate to see what the rest of intra-town transport bill comes out as.
Of course full usage / demand / route data would be required to work out the best way to move people around the city, but when it's a 2 mile journey between Victoria Quay and St Andrew House I really don't see how you could swing the maths to make taxi come out for that particular journey.
There will of course always be a need for fast / on-demand / carrying heavy things sort of journeys for which a taxi is the obvious solution. But many other large businesses / employers with similar footprints spread across the city and similar needs for employees to be moving around between sites have found that taxis are not a cheap or efficient way of moving their staff around. I'm sure the civil service will eventually catch up.
Posted 12 years ago # -
@Kaputnik; the contract is over 5 years IIRC.
Costs; SAH to VQ; approx £7 by taxi
time saved compared to bus is 15 minutes (but about to reduce as 22 returns to Leith St); bus is £1.30
So for single occupancy taxi, if hourly rate (inc pension contribution, overheads etc) is less than £21.30, then bus wins on financial grounds. So that is most grades who might take a taxi. If more than one is travelling, its a no-brainer.
Part of the reason for the costs (down 22.5% from the previous year, but you wont see that in the article) is because of senior management cuts that have led to much greater spans of authority that encompass multiple buildings.Posted 12 years ago # -
Bus is £1.40
Posted 12 years ago # -
time saved compared to bus is 15 minutes (but about to reduce as 22 returns to Leith St); bus is £1.30
I wonder how many already pay LRT for season tickets/passes
so could in theory travel 'free'
of course you would expect the employer to chip in/provide loans to cover purchase cost etcPosted 12 years ago #
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