Extending road-life of taxis wins support of drivers and public

A further extension to the road-life of Irish taxis received almost universal support from nearly 2,000 public submissions.

The Irish taxi and hackney fleet is ageing but replacing vehicles has become increasingly difficult due to global supply problems.

With public demand for the service increasing, the regulator moved to further extend a pause in mandatory age caps introduced during Covid-19 and designed to maintain the fleet size of over 21,500 small public service vehicles (SPSVs).

Under law, taxis and hackneys cannot be more than 10 years old, or 15 for wheelchair accessible vehicles.

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The new regulations, signed in November, mean older cars in the fleet which were due to be replaced in 2023 or 2024, can now remain in service until at least 2025, at which time the extensions will be phased out.

A public consultation process to gauge views on the proposal attracted 1,938 submissions, of which 94 per cent were in favour.

According to the National Transport Authority (NTA), the industry regulator, the ability of drivers to replace their cars has been hit by multiple factors including Russia’s was in Ukraine and the related shortage of semiconductor chips; logistics disruptions in Germany; energy rationing in Europe; and Brexit, among others.

In theory, the extension of vehicle life would see a continuation of Ireland’s taxi services in spite of those problems and their effects on car supply.

The majority of those who gave their views during consultation were either drivers or representative bodies, accounting for about 86 per cent. They made up 87 per cent of submissions in support of the move, but also 69 per cent of those who argued against it (109 submissions in total).

Of dissenting views, the most common reason given was that customers expected to travel in modern, high standard vehicles and that the quality of the fleet would be diminished by the proposal. There were concerns, too, about the safety of vehicles and their environmental impact.

“This proposal will lead to a fleet of old and unreliable rubbish on the roads,” one submission said. “There are already too many over the hill cars being used as taxis and this would increase their lifespan.”

Many disagreed on the grounds the extension did not go far enough or did not benefit everyone equally. A “sizeable” portion of industry members believed age rules should be scrapped altogether.

It is not the first time such a move has been taken. During the Covid-19 pandemic emergency regulations temporarily extended the maximum age because of a lack of passenger demand during restrictions which, according to the NTA, “decimated the earning capacity of SPSV operators”.

As a result, no taxi or hackney was required to exit the fleet on the basis of age during Covid restrictions between 2020 and 2022. Instead they were permitted to remain until the corresponding expiry date in 2023.

The recent regulations have extended this, allowing vehicles with a current final operation date in 2023 and 2024 to continue for a period beyond that. These “temporary exceptional contingency regulations” will be phased out from 2025, and the situation reviewed in 2023.