Im take a guess and say that 4000 yellow cabs are inactive, because quite frankly, there aren’t drivers that are willing to drive for them because the money is not there
One of the downfalls of yellow is that it’s very expensive to rent because it’s very expensive to operate and due to the reduction in passengers, it’s hard for a driver to make a decent living after expenses with Yellow Cab, the same can be said about for high vehicles at the moment. The fact of the matter is it that there is too many cars and not enough passengers
Agree, right now there are too many cars, trying to service a finite amount of passenger trips across all NYC FHV sectors. This is going to hit all drivers earnings. Taxi garages / medallion owners probably should cut their leasing rates to attract drivers, but (as you probably know) many of them still have to service the debt associated with the medallion loan (even restructured loans). Even on restructured debt, the servicing cost is ~$1,200 per month on just the medallion debt (excluding vehicle loan, maintenance, other operating costs).
Think immediate solution, that will benefit all drivers, is for the TLC to not add any more vehicles (for at least a couple of years) and make that policy stance clear. For example, TLC could just create a metric based on data - as long a passenger trips to vehicles is below X, no new TLC Plates can be added (similar to the driver minimum pay formula). Think drivers/investors will also be more confident to make a long term bet on the industry.
Unfortunately, the numbers don’t go down as fast as we want them to go even with the plate cap in place drivers were hesitant to surrender their plates because they knew they weren’t able to get them back. Even with the pay rules the fact that the Tlc does not enforce the utilization rate, the way that they it should be, many drivers are making less than minimum wage after expenses
The solution would’ve been back in 2015 when Mayor the Blasio wanted to put a cap on Tlc plates. Now it’s too late not to mention the Tlc has added 13,500 plates in 2023 and it’s going to take more than a decade to recover from this
Im take a guess and say that 4000 yellow cabs are inactive, because quite frankly, there aren’t drivers that are willing to drive for them because the money is not there
One of the downfalls of yellow is that it’s very expensive to rent because it’s very expensive to operate and due to the reduction in passengers, it’s hard for a driver to make a decent living after expenses with Yellow Cab, the same can be said about for high vehicles at the moment. The fact of the matter is it that there is too many cars and not enough passengers
Agree, right now there are too many cars, trying to service a finite amount of passenger trips across all NYC FHV sectors. This is going to hit all drivers earnings. Taxi garages / medallion owners probably should cut their leasing rates to attract drivers, but (as you probably know) many of them still have to service the debt associated with the medallion loan (even restructured loans). Even on restructured debt, the servicing cost is ~$1,200 per month on just the medallion debt (excluding vehicle loan, maintenance, other operating costs).
Think immediate solution, that will benefit all drivers, is for the TLC to not add any more vehicles (for at least a couple of years) and make that policy stance clear. For example, TLC could just create a metric based on data - as long a passenger trips to vehicles is below X, no new TLC Plates can be added (similar to the driver minimum pay formula). Think drivers/investors will also be more confident to make a long term bet on the industry.
Unfortunately, the numbers don’t go down as fast as we want them to go even with the plate cap in place drivers were hesitant to surrender their plates because they knew they weren’t able to get them back. Even with the pay rules the fact that the Tlc does not enforce the utilization rate, the way that they it should be, many drivers are making less than minimum wage after expenses
The solution would’ve been back in 2015 when Mayor the Blasio wanted to put a cap on Tlc plates. Now it’s too late not to mention the Tlc has added 13,500 plates in 2023 and it’s going to take more than a decade to recover from this