The term ‘Unmet Demand’ suggests that there are not enough Taxis (Hackney Carriages) in operation to service the demand from the consumer.
When I first started operating a Taxi in Newquay, there was a good supply of work and you could make a living, mainly because people did not have mobile phones and had to walk to the rank to get a Taxi, so the absence of mobile phones essentially ensured a steady trade. Now, everyone has a mobile phone, so why walk to the Taxi rank when you can phone for one to come to you? This has caused a massive decline of demand at Taxi ranks altogether.
This has forced Taxi operators to join telephone circuits in order to keep their businesses alive to begin with, which results in those same Taxis that are operating on the ranks, being called away regularly to service those customers – “the unmet demand observed in Restormel principally arises from what is known as ‘thin’ demand, i.e. relatively low demand yet which is met by service to ranks. This makes the potential for people turning up at ranks and finding no vehicles there much more likely given the number of vehicles servicing demand is usually smaller to match the smaller demand. This can be made worse by such demand driving vehicles to also work on private hire circuits that can also take them away from the rank just at the time rank-based demand might arrive”. Adding more vehicles into the equation will not improve this as this would ‘THIN’ the work supply even more only exaggerating the problem, as the above proves that there are already too many!
The best example of this fact is that, nearly all the St Austell based Taxi operators sold there Hackney Carriages to people wanting to cash in on the Summer trade in Newquay, because there was little point in having a Hackney Carriage in St Austell as it is so predominantly ‘Private Hire’ based, and there are next to no Ranks in St Austell town anyway, so where would you ply for hire from? Unfortunately, this has led to an over supply of Hackney Carriages in Newquay, again worsening the ‘Thin’ demand.
Furthermore, over the last twenty years with numerous unmet demand surveys taking place, operators like myself have paid out thousands of pounds for these 3 yearly surveys to tell us what we already know (no dis-respect to the surveyors). Shortening this to a 2 yearly basis would in our eyes only serve to increase costs!