Lothian Taxicard, offering discounted taxi fares to disabled people, was started 25 years ago. As the council officer who was principally responsible for developing the scheme, I thought it a timely point to reflect on its history - and the possible future of such schemes.​

The introduction of a Taxicard scheme was not my idea; my then boss Keith Gowenlock proposed the service as part of ‘the multi-modal approach’ to accessible transport that Lothian Regional Council (LRC) was developing. This was supported by the head of the Public Transport Unit David Chambers, and at a political level, by Councillors Ron Muir and then David Begg who chaired the Transport Committee. The Lothian scheme was loosely modelled on the London Taxicard scheme which the GLC had funded for some time along with dial-a-ride services. Interestingly, a taxi subsidy scheme had also run in Edinburgh for a number of years, administered by the rather unfortunately-named Edinburgh Cripple Aid Society (which has since re-branded solely as ‘ECAS’). The ECAS scheme issued “chits’ giving discounted fares to a group of disabled people for use with a contracted local taxi firm, Radiocabs.

However, the ECAS scheme was not sustainable; for a start, it applied only to a small group of people in Edinburgh, and the Regional Council, which had taken over funding of the scheme, needed to ensure that services were available more fairly, including in the other districts in the Region (West, East and Midlothian).  ECAS was keen for the Council to take over administration of the scheme. For its part, LRC saw a Taxicard scheme offering several distinctive benefits which other services could not. In particular, although LRC funded the local dial-a-ride service Handicabs, and since 1990 a semi-scheduled Dial-a-Bus shopping service, these door to door schemes did not suit everyone. Getting through on the phone to secure a booking was a problem and not everyone wanted to (or could) plan their trips in advance. In addition, as a service specifically for disabled people, dial-a-rides were seen by some as having a degree of stigma as a ‘special’ or segregated service, and they provided limited choice to the passenger. Of course, mainstream public transport was a complete no-go area for most disabled people at this time as buses typically had three steps up to a high floor. Taxicard therefore complemented other door to door services and efforts to improve the accessibility of mainstream public transport.​

Edinburgh District Council had also been the first council outside London to stipulate that all taxis must become wheelchair accessible. Along with this requirement, Edinburgh led the way in training taxi drivers on how to assist passengers using wheelchairs, with mandatory sessions for drivers overseen by the Cab Office, then managed by the police. Unquestionably, not all taxi drivers welcomed these new obligations, but a Taxicard scheme could complement these regulatory measures by encouraging disabled people to use taxis, stimulating customer demand.

So the Lothian Taxicard scheme was launched in 1992, offering a maximum of 104 single trips a year (this maximum limit echoed the demands of the ‘One Trip a Week’ campaign for dial-a-ride funding which I had led in London a few years earlier). The chief criterion for eligibility for a Taxicard was that the applicant was unable to use buses. Local taxi and private hire companies were invited to participate in the scheme, so that there was usually both a choice of service provider, and of vehicles type. The user had to make a minimum payment of £1.00 and would pay no more until the fare exceeded £5.00; anything above that was payable by the passenger. In 1992, this subsidy of up to £4 per trip paid for a reasonable distance. Triplicate receipt pads were issued to participating companies, with passenger, council and taxi firm each getting a copy. The scheme was launched in West Lothian and then rolled out to the other councils with (from memory) an annual budget of £0.5 million. It is hard not to feel a little nostalgic for a time when a local authority had both the money and the political will to initiate new services like this!

Unsurprisingly, the scheme was immediately popular, with rapidly-developing demand for Taxicards and immensely positive feedback. The number of trips by Taxicard quickly outstripped those by dial-a-ride and Dial-a-Bus, and with a financial ceiling per trip, it represented a cost-effective way of significantly increasing travel options for many disabled people to the council. A Taxicard Users’ Association developed, which became influential as a disability-led group campaigning for accessible transport. The scheme was part of the reason that Lothian Regional Council won the first Equality Award by the European Commission in Scotland in 1995, and several other regional councils introduced similar schemes. However, controlling budgets was always a problem and it was administratively cumbersome, with thousands of trip slips processed monthly to control the 104 limit and to check taxi invoices. Eligibility was largely controlled through requiring that Taxicard applicants did not also hold concessionary travel (bus) permits but eligibility was always prone to ‘grey areas’ given that people do not neatly fall into two boxes - those who can, and those who can’t ‘use conventional buses’. As buses have become more accessible and concepts of disability (including mental health) have changed, eligibility has no doubt become more contested.

The scheme survived local government re-organisation in 1996, with each of the four successor unitary councils in the Lothians maintaining their own Taxicard schemes. However, over the years, the benefits provided have been eroded as senior officials gave the scheme less priority and reduced budgets. The minimum flat rate contribution by the passenger was raised to £2.00 and over time, the remaining £3.00 subsidy went less and less far - literally - due to taxi fare inflation. Perhaps I’m reading more into this than I should, but I’m struck how the scheme logo in Edinburgh today is completely unchanged from 1992! While the scheme continues in the local authorities today, Midlothian closed the scheme to new entrants in 2015.

In January, the Scottish Transport Minister Humza Yousaf announced that there would be a consultation on the future of Scotland’s concessionary travel scheme (1). The current scheme, which was set up in 2006, has faced criticism on the grounds of escalating cost - £207.8 million in 2016-17 (2) - and also from bus operators, who have seen reimbursement levels fall in recent years to a new low of 56.9% of the standard fare (3).

Update September 2017 - consultation on scheme open until 17 November 2017 bit.ly/2guM5Ag 

However the review is also timely in providing an opportunity - overdue at that - to review the value for money of the social benefits that the scheme provides. Leaving to one side wider issues of taxation and spending, the very considerable concessionary travel budget is currently poorly targeted at people who need it.

Many disability advocates have begun to see the prospect of the driverless car or autonomous vehicle (AV) as a truly revolutionary mobility solution. Although it is entirely possible that predictions of an imminent driverless car revolution have been overhyped (1), let us assume that the model of ‘Mobility as a Service’ takes hold. In the future, it becomes the norm for people to summon a driverless (electric) car that meets their requirements at a moments notice through an app, ‘Uber-style’. Payment will be based on use and because of the economics of intensively-used vehicles, to own and use a private vehicle will become unattractive for most people.

References
1) Driverless cars: the road ahead is difficult, NESTA, July 2016 

2) Driverless driving for disabled people within the decade? Robin Christopherson, June 2016

3) Understanding why some people do not use buses, Scottish Government Social Research 2010

4) Importance of safe pedestrian environments to ensure older people travel with confidence.  Musselwhite, C, October 2016

5) Huffington Post, January 2017 

6) GATEway demonstrates how teleoperation and autonomy can improve mobility for disabled drivers, GATEway, January 2017 

7) Pathway to driverless cars, DfT January 2017

8) Ruderman Family Foundation, January 2017

There is currently much discussion about autonomous vehicles and the impact that they will have on our streets. Some anticipate that they will make private cars, buses and taxis virtually obsolete by 2030. Others are more sceptical. But we do not need to look 15 years into the future to anticipate significant changes in how roads are used; they are already evident.

For example, van traffic in the UK has increased by 70% in the past 20 years and is currently growing at 4 % a year. This is likely to be due in part at least, to the ever increasing rise in internet shopping and home delivery. What are the implications for our streets?  

Without wishing to jump to “white van man” stereotypes, it is hard to avoid concluding that there are a number of negative impacts on streets and their users. ​ A 2015 study by TRL found van drivers to be twice as likely as other drivers to use phones while driving. Anecdotally, vans seem particularly prone to illegal parking/loading, pavement parking and poor driving standards generally, encouraged no doubt by the employment and productivity pressures which apply to many van drivers. This can only have a negative impact on pedestrians, cyclists and indeed other drivers. 

The rise of Uber is another recent change in traffic patterns, which is certainly disrupting traditional taxi businesses in urban areas and has led to calls for more regulation. But it is not only motor vehicle patterns which are changing; on a recent 20 minute walk I made through Edinburgh in the early evening, I passed 6 cyclists - five of which were Deliveroo couriers, whose road behaviour has also been subject to criticism. Deliveroo started operations only in 2013.

Companies generating new traffic like Amazon, Asos, Uber, Deliveroo, etc have business models built on the free use of a public asset: the road. Of course, we love home delivery of shopping and take-away food, and low ‘taxi’ fares. But it raises the question of whether commercial road users should pay more for using assets that they currently use for free - especially if their behaviour puts a cost (in terms of safety, convenience and accessibility) on other road users. The current taxation regime (for fuel, VED etc) is a very blunt instrument for making road users pay a fair price for using roads. In the longer term, ‘smart’ road pricing may become more acceptable as a means to apportion charges on road users more fairly, on top of the growing need to curtail urban traffic because of congestion and air quality. Indeed just this month the London Assembly has called for urgent reform to the capital's Congestion Charge. As so often, the technology is there, but the legal and regulatory environment lags behind.

Bollards are generally used to deter pavement parking, and in many places, may be the lesser of two evils in performing this function. So it is regrettable to see the common sight of bollards adjacent to other street furniture (often signage poles)…assuming the pole is was put in after the bollard, the  bollard could (should) have been removed. And I understand that the mail box to the left is also redundant (thanks to @Paul)

Thanks to http://bullshitbingo.net, I’ve devised this bingo card for spotting pedestrian problems with the street.  I hope that this might be a fun way of helping people to notice problems with the street from the walking viewpoint; any feedback very welcome! ​

Many of our streets are littered with signage poles. A significant opportunity to do something about this lies in the latest version of the statutory guidance Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions 2016 (TSRGD). This specifically aims to reducing signage clutter, particularly eliminating the need for signs mounted on poles to show parking and loading restrictions.  Perhaps most irksome of all are the dozens of bare poles which carry no sign at all. These will have carried parking or loading signs at one time, but they have for months - or possibly years - been bare, serving no purpose other than to obstruct pedestrians. I counted five such poles in one kilometre stretch of Slateford Road. These can now all be removed entirely without undermining the traffic orders that regulate the parking and loading restrictions in place. Will Edinburgh - and other councils - seize this opportunity to clean up our streets?

​I have already complained about the curse of unnecessary phone boxes, which are really just advertising boards.  So I’ll not harp on about them again. But along with cash machine kiosks and other such stuff, they (mostly) need to go.

​Cycling is on the increase: good. Bikes on the pavement are also on the increase: not good. Keep them on the road please, preferably in well-designed cycle parking. Or if cycle parking must be on the pavement, please put them in suitable nooks and crannies, well away from the desire line of people on foot…

​Overhanging trees and especially protruding hedges are everywhere. It is not uncommon to see the space available to people walking halved by encroaching shrubs. How often do council inspectors knock on a door and draw this to the attention of their owners? Never, I would think…

Rubbish in the street is not nice for anyone, but can also be hazardous. Mattresses and such like are frequently dumped, sometimes blocking the whole footway. To be fair, my council (Edinburgh) usually removes this kind of thing fairly quickly, and it would help if people stopped anti-social fly-tipping. But worse is the rubbish left by the council and its contractors itself: the traffic cones and all the other highways rubbish that seems to perpetually litter our streets - sandbags, barriers, and such like. They are everywhere. And they shouldn’t be.

​Into the top three now; yes these are my top hates at the moment: Roadworks signs on the pavement. They are supposed to comply with the statutory Code, but often don’t. They also often linger long after their original purpose has expired. Special mention must go to “diversion” signs…in my own street, I have seen a sequence of signs reading: “diversion”, “end of diversion” and then, surprise, surprise, “diversion” again. And worst of all are signs mounted in 900kg concrete blocks, taking up half the pavement which seem to be everywhere. Ban them; put temporary signs on lamp posts instead.

​I am known for my dislike of signage poles, I confess. Poles with parking signs, poles with signs directing you (ie motorists) to an amenity…above all, poles with nothing on them whatsoever. Design guidance couldn’t be clearer - signage should be minimised, and where it is needed, it should be mounted on lamp posts, buildings or other infrastructure.  But old habits die hard. We are still sticking new poles everywhere, let alone de-cluttering our streets - every new initiative (safe routes to school, trams, parking zones) brings a new clutch of signs and poles…

And so to Number One. Parking on the pavement is not on. But in Edinburgh, while you are pretty much guaranteed a parking ticket if you overstay your time limit in a controlled parking zone bay, no one seems to take responsibility for vehicles parked on the pavement. Let’s hope the promised  Footway Parking and Double Parking (Scotland) Bill will really put an end to this. ​

Have you ever noticed that there seem to be an awful lot of phone boxes in Edinburgh streets?     (I’m not talking here about traditional red phone boxes, by the way: rather the unlovely, utilitarian payphone). In the age of the ubiquitous mobile phone, do we need so many of these square boxes in our already-cluttered pavements? I first became curious about this phenomenon while trying - successfully, eventually! - to get this redundant phone box removed from Tollcross as a result of a street audit for Living Streets Edinburgh.

Indeed, BT reports that a third of their pay phones have been removed, because most phone boxes lose money; calls from their payphones have fallen by more than 80% in the past ten years. But according to UK payphone.com there are 1,379 in Edinburgh.  In South St Andrews Street, just off Edinburgh’s Princes Street, there are no fewer than seven payphone within the space 40 metres. Is it conceivable that there is ever a demand for all these phones at any one time?

Could this proliferation possibly be connected with BT’s partnership with street furniture and advertising giant JC Decaux? JC Decaux’s “StreetTalk” is a roadside advertising programme aimed particularly at young people which seems to use BT phone boxes as prime advertising sites. JCDecaux’s website boasts that “StreetTalk’s domination of the high street means that campaigns can get right in on the action”. Of course, phone boxes are not the only - or no doubt the worst - culprit cluttering our streets, but there is something objectionable, sneaky even, about a street advertising programme that masquerades as a public service. 

Scottish councils have clear powers under the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984 to remove obstructions from our streets. It would be nice to see councils using these powers more vigorously to reduce phone boxes (and all other useless things which clutter our towns and cities) to make our streets more attractive and easy places for people to use. The latest Ofcom guidance (5) on the subject I could find seems to be ten years old; it is mostly concerned with the process for removing phone boxes (to protect rural communities where a phone box might be a crucial lifeline). Perhaps Ofcom could provide some leadership here too?