CAB firms are offering £1 fares in the latest round of taxi price wars.
Two Basildon private hire companies made a series of fare cuts last month, in an effort to undercut each other.
Value Cars dropped their charges to a £1.20 start rate, with a £5 price cap for any fare within the town, while A and B Taxis cut its start rate to £1.50 and guaranteed any journey with it would cost 20p less than rival firms. Now hackney carriages – the only taxis allowed to pick up customers from the town’s ranks – have weighed in with a special offer of their own.
They are offering to charge only £1 a person for journeys from outlying parts of Basildon to the town centre.
Dave Blackwell, 56, chairman of the Basildon hackney carriage licensed taxis’ association, said: “Once we’ve dropped off a customer, we usually return to the town centre rank, by the bus station, hopefully to pick up new customers.
“If we pick someone up off the street on our way back to the rank, we won’t be turning on our meters and will just charge a flat rate of £1 a person.
“Customers will know which taxis are offering this, as they will have stickers advertising it on their sun visors, visible through the windscreen.
“Times are hard and people have been walking because they can’t afford a taxi.
“We hope this will generate some extra business for us and help our customers out during the recession.”
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