Perry Richardson writing on Taxi Point argues that The Knowledge is now irretrievably lost.
It is now hard to argue that The Knowledge of London (‘KoL’) is not only declining in interest and participation, but it’s also dwindling with little hope of coming back.
And the sad part of this story… does anyone really care?
The KoL was seen as an achievement to be proud of and a qualification into a respected trade that offered a job for life should the cabbie wish to trade. That has been slowly eroded away to the point where we now find ourselves.
Where has it all gone wrong?
The start of the decline in KoL applicants dates from when electronic hailing systems arrived. The boundary between what was a booking and what was a hailing was quickly blurred. It created confusion for those looking to enter the plying-for-hire market and provided an opportunity for those that would normally work off pre-determined bookings. The market was disrupted, and drivers suffered.
An explosion in private hire vehicle (‘PHV’) drivers ensued, saturating the market and making the job of a taxi driver unattractive, and for some in the trade, financially unviable. There were no caps on numbers introduced to safeguard taxis which offer 100 per cent wheelchair-accessible cabs.
A decade on and there is still no cap on numbers.
Publicly hailed taxis were then demoted to a similar status as delivery vans and private vehicles. Road space was lost, and this trend has continued rapidly for years. This has created doubt among those looking at the taxi trade as a prospective career and brought questions about whether London’s transport authorities actually see the service as a solution to inclusive public transport mobility.
Taxi tariffs have been stifled, slowly reducing the earning power of cabbies. Multiple tariffs frozen and below-inflation tariff changes, not always reviewed annually, have made the job less appealing to new entrants and pushed others out to higher-paid employment.
The number of licensed taxi drivers has continued to drop steadily. In 2015 there were 25,891 taxi drivers in London. Now, that figure stands at just 18,391 and will continue falling fast due to inaction.
Expensive vehicles and rising costs are a huge problem off the back of the global pandemic where the industry was brought to its knees. The industry is still catching up on lost revenue during that period, but now inflation and interest rates have pushed the only vehicle available to buy through the £100,000 mark if purchased on finance and a low deposit. Transport for London (‘TfL’) could have supported the industry by bringing in a new tariff that matched the increase in costs… but instead opted for a below-inflation tariff meaning cabbies will be at least another 4 per cent out of pocket this year.
After training hard at their own expense for upwards of four years, applicants then run the risk of losing that licence to work on the very first day of working if they accumulate points on their licence, but ridiculously are still able to then apply to work for a London bus company. The risk of losing a licence is too great now for the commitment each KoL application gives to the capital to serve it.
Lastly, and this is becoming even more prevalent when considering doing the KoL, how will the introduction of autonomous vehicles impact an industry that is already declining in numbers? No one knows the time scales involved or just how ‘autonomous’ a vehicle can be in a bustling London city with people, bikes and scooters flying in all directions. But what it does do is create doubt for those looking to enter the trade. No one has considered or explored what would happen to 300,000 taxi and PHV drivers across the UK. What would happen to their licences, plying-for-hire and disabled mobility?
A review into the KoL has been ongoing and findings were set for release last year. There is however still no further news on this.
Changes were needed years ago. Any changes brought in today would take years to filter through given the length of time to train KoL applicants. Dumbing down the KoL to fast-track drivers would devalue the qualification already obtained by drivers. But the problem isn’t the KoL test. If the job was worthwhile people would invest time and money to reach the standard required.
Can the Mayor of London and TfL find a way to make the job, not the KoL, more attractive and worthwhile? The last decade of decline would have many believe not.
On 21 May 1827 the Standard was founded, it became the dominant evening newspaper for London and is now the only one published a that time of day
Thief-Taker General Jonathan Wild sent more than 120 men to the gallows but was hanged at Tyburn for running gangs of thieves and highwaymen
When Camden’s Egyptian style cigarette factory opened in 1927 the road was filled with sand and opera singers performed Aida
In 1907 William Whiteley was shot dead in his Bayswater store by a young man claiming to be his illegitimate son
When Napoleon was thinking of invading England his failed attempt was mocked by an unusual ale house sign: ‘My Arse in a Bandbox’
The Grapes, Limehouse was the inspiration for Charles Dickens’ ‘Six Jolly Fellowship Porters’ in Our Mutual Friend
The Chelsea Flower Show (The May Flower Show of the Royal Horticulture Society) has been held at the Royal Hospital since 1913
Queen Victoria’s husband, Albert, saved the Oval cricket ground from closure only six years after it opened, desperate for funds they had considered adding poultry shows to the venue’s activities
Before CrossRail was named the Elizabeth line, Belsize Park was the only part of the London Underground to use a Z in its name
Wall’s Sausages used to be located at 113 Jermyn Street, where the meat for their products was ground by a donkey operating a treadmill
‘Hobson’s Choice’ comes from the livery stable owner Thomas Hobson who would drive from Cambridge to the Bull Inn, Bishopsgate Street
Trivial Matter: London in 140 characters is taken from the daily Twitter feed @cabbieblog.
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