With only half of the taxi fleet now operating and more plans to reduce fleet numbers, Lismore Taxis’ drivers are doing it tough right now.

Taxi owner Graham Casey said despite a massive downturn in customers due to coronavirus movement restrictions, the local Lismore taxi service wants to try to maintain a 24 hour service.

“We get people who need a taxi to take them to hospital or to medical appointments,” Graham said.

“A lot of elderly people use the service to get to the supermarkets too – often they will go out three times a week as their only outing, but now they might only go out once a week.

“We also advertise on Facebook that we will do deliveries of take away food.”

Graham said he’s been “in the game” for 30 years and the coronavirus is impacting on the taxi industry much more than the recession did in the early 2000s.

“We took six cars off the road then, but it was nothing like this,” he said.

“We’ve already halved the fleet. We had five cars out there last Thursday night that did four jobs. The drivers were working for about $2 per hour. 

“We also don’t have as many school runs, with most people staying home. But we want to keep vehicles on road, as long as our drivers want to take a risk.”

Covid-19 infections on the rise in local health district

Graham said safety measures put in place by the taxi service include thorough car cleaning procedures while the taxis are stopped in the taxi rank, and some drivers are choosing to wear masks.

“But we’ve been told masks are not such a great thing,” he said.

“We also make sure the passengers sit in the back seat and we keep the window open so the air flows backwards through the car.

“Lismore’s hospital is a central location, so it doesn’t take long to get there and we don’t say no to people who want to get a taxi.”

While taxis are deemed an essential service, Graham said the taxi drivers will meet later this week to discuss the roster and taking more cars off the road. 

“It may be we just keep one quarter of the fleet on the road,” Graham said.

“If we have about seven cars in service each day and night and we all take turns every two weeks, then over time we all get a chance to make some money and pay expenses.”

Graham said the structure of Lismore Taxis was a collaborative of individually owned taxis, with 21 separate owners and their drivers, who were all struggling to pay the running costs of operating a taxi.

 “It costs about $1200 a month to keep a taxi on the road,” he said. “The overheads are huge – there’s the insurance, green slip and car registration – and then the base fees on top of it so we can keep Lismore Taxis and staff operating.

 “We’ve also got new people who’ve just bought into the business, trying to making payments on cars - and need to meet installments.

"It makes it hard and we’ve just got to push on."

“The people who advertise rideshares are not around in these hard times, but Lismore taxi drivers are going to keep going.”

Government announces new wage subsidy package