Canberra Elite taxis lined up in Kembla Street Fyshwick on Monday. Photo: Graham Tidy
Canberra Elite taxi drivers stopped work for the second consecutive day over the introduction of a new GPS booking system on Wednesday, causing havoc during the morning peak at the airport.
There was a large backlog of arriving passengers at the airport with only a slow trickle of taxis to meet the demand from 14 incoming flights before 9.40am.
With hundreds of people queuing for taxis, Canberra Airport put on extra customer service personnel to help explain the delays and direct passengers to rental cars, the Airport Express bus and chauffeured hire car services.
The good news is, drivers believe they may have come to an acceptable compromise with Aerial Capital Group, which introduced the controversial new booking system on Monday without consulting drivers and operators.
Drivers wanted a return to the previous system, which allocated drivers a position in a queue for the area they were in, allowing them to be at the ready when they reached the top of the queue, or take a break when they knew they had a wait.
They could also see what areas the jobs were coming from and how many drivers were around, allowing them to position themselves for the best chance of a fare.
The new system allocates jobs to the closest taxi based on GPS location, leaving leaves drivers in the dark and allocating jobs to the luck of the draw and making drivers' incomes unpredictable.
Drivers claim there is not enough work in Canberra for the GPS system to be equitable.
A delegate of drivers and operators were meeting again with Aerial Capital Group on Wednesday afternoon, where they believe a discussed compromise of using the GPS system in the morning and evening peaks may be formally agreed on.
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