Garrett Emmerson : The Final Insult.

Garrett Emmerson's arrogant performance on London Live.

Members from both the licensed Taxi and Private Hire Trades are calling for the resignation or Garrett Emmerson, after his disastrous performance in an interview on London Live.

After being told by the elected members of Grater London Authority Transport Committee that TfL's performance was woefully inadequate, Emmerson arrogantly refused to accept anything was/is wrong. He then added insult to injury by exaggerating past performance results and actually lied about manpower resources.

In the interview, Caroline Pidgeon stated cab enforcement in London is woefully under resourced. Garrett countered that the overhaul status of enforcement should include not only TfL's impotent compliance, who have no authority over licensed or unlicensed touts, but also the whole metropolitan police force. He said the actual footfall of enforcement was more in the region of 400. He would have been more accurate had he said the region of Narnia.

The proof as they say is in the pudding:

Back in November, the Chair of the LCDC sent a Text to an enforcement officer he had met in a previous meeting. The text appertained to touting being carried out at the Walkabout Pub. The reply shown below shows the true extent of Cab Enforcement in London, on a Saturday night.

Text published on Twitter

The text is proof, Garrett Emmerson tried to mislead Caroline Pidgeon, chair of the London Assembly Transport Committee, over the issue of enforcement manpower.

Amazingly he also said he finds it hard to recognise that TfL need to get the basics right. As an instance, he alleged illegal touting had reduced by 37%. This is nonsense, what he should have said is, the number of convictions for illegal touting fell by 37%, a completely different aspect.

He also tried to allude it is TfL's regulatory service, that is the Gold Standard, when in fact it is the London Taxi Trade which is the Gold Standard, not because of TfL but despite TfL.

TfL never made the Taxi Service in London the best Taxi service in the world, they inherited us from the Met.

Editorial Comment:

One thing that needs exploring is the splitting up of Taxis and Private Hire. They are two separate trades and have different operating needs and policies.

There is no way they should be under one directorate.

After all we don't have London Underground and Buses. Both are separate divisions of Transport in London with two separate directorates and Managing Directors.