London Licensing New NSL Inspection Centres John Mason, Director of Taxi and Private Hire in London, has worked extremely hard with significant challenges to get to the start of this process, which everyone hopes will be a great success. From the end of February / Beginning of March 2013, NSL Ltd became responsible for the provision of the Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle licensing and inspection services in London. As part of the arrangements, from Friday 1 st March, London Taxis licensed under the new regime will changeover to two ‘standard’ (class 4) MOTs per annum, which can be undertaken at any VOSA approved MOT testing station. This brings Taxis into line with the very successful system that’s been in place for Private Hire Vehicles in London for nearly 10 years. The old provider of vehicle licensing and inspection services in London (SGS UK Ltd) will no longer be responsible for or able to undertake any Taxi and Private Hire related vehicle inspections. For continuity of service and ease of use, NSL Ltd has taken over the previous phone number used by SGS for bookings which is 0845 378 2345. It won’t be possible for NSL Ltd to accept cash or cheque payments at any of the new inspection centres. All payments must be made by debit or credit card at the time that bookings are made in order to secure an inspection slot. All the new inspection centres have comfortable waiting areas with vending machines for hot and cold drinks and snacks. At most of the centres drivers will be able to view the inspections taking place from the waiting area. All centres do have signs on the buildings as the photo demonstrates but TfL TPH are working hard to identify additional signage requirements in the surrounding areas to help drivers find the new facilities. 52 | Private Hire News | issue 61 | spring 2013 www.lphca.co.uk | [email protected]| @LPHCA Thursday 28 th February 2013 saw the launch of new NSL Inspection Centres and a Contact Centre in London, which for Transport for London Taxi and Private Hire (TfL TPH) starts the beginning of a process designed to bring Taxi and Private Hire licensing to new levels of excellence never seen before. CONTINUED ON PAGE 54
Transcript
London LicensingNew Nsl inspection centres
John Mason, Director of Taxi and Private Hire in London, has worked extremely hard with significant challenges to get to the start of this process, which everyone hopes will be a great success.
From the end of February / Beginning of March 2013, NSL Ltd became responsible for the provision of the Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle licensing and inspection services in London.
As part of the arrangements, from Friday 1st March, London Taxis licensed under the new regime will changeover to two ‘standard’ (class 4) MoTs per annum, which can be undertaken at any VOSA approved MOT testing station. This brings Taxis into line with the very successful system that’s been in place for Private Hire Vehicles in London for nearly 10 years.
The old provider of vehicle licensing and inspection services in London (SGS UK Ltd) will no longer be responsible for or able to undertake any Taxi and Private Hire related vehicle inspections. For continuity of service and ease of use, NSL Ltd has taken over the previous phone number used by SGS for bookings which is 0845 378 2345.
It won’t be possible for NSL Ltd to accept cash or cheque payments at any of the new inspection centres. All payments must be made by debit or credit card at the time that bookings are made in order to secure an inspection slot.
All the new inspection centres have comfortable waiting areas with vending machines for hot and cold drinks and snacks. At most of the centres drivers will be able to view the inspections taking place from the waiting area.
All centres do have signs on the buildings as the photo demonstrates but TfL TPH are working hard to identify additional signage requirements in the surrounding areas to help drivers find the new facilities.
52 | Private Hire News | issue 61 | spring 2013 www.lphca.co.uk | [email protected] | @LPHCA
Thursday 28th February 2013 saw the launch of new NSL Inspection Centres and a Contact Centre in London, which for Transport for London Taxi and Private Hire (TfL TPH) starts the beginning of a process designed to bring Taxi and Private Hire licensing to new levels of excellence never seen before.
CoNTINuED oN PAGE 54
54 | Private Hire News | issue 61 | spring 2013 www.lphca.co.uk | [email protected] | @LPHCA
The LPHCA received the following from John Mason, Director of Taxi and Private Hire in London, for publication and distribution.
When I joined the “PCo” directorate 3 years ago it was very clear from my own observations and those expressed by the taxi and private hire trade that a programme of reform and modernisation was much needed and overdue across the Directorate. When my predecessors had been given the task of introducing formal licensing for private hire vehicles it was a massive challenge and they did this by using existing or hastily arranged systems and processes which, at the time, was the right thing to do but in the longer term started to creek and did not make the best use of emerging technology.
over the past 3 years my team and I have worked hard to improve the quality of service we provide to drivers and operators by reducing clunky back office processes and introducing modern telephone call centre systems but there is only so far we can go with the existing older paper based processes and separate IT systems. In order to deliver a service fit for the 21st Century, to enable online bookings and renewals and provide our Compliance team with instant access to licensing data we had to start from scratch and design a new, end to end system that does this.
The re-let of our vehicle licensing service provided us with the ideal opportunity to “kill two birds with one stone”, re-let and improve the taxi and PHV vehicle licensing service and, through the same procurement, source a new all singing and dancing IT system.
This project is now nearing completion and my team and the new contractor NSL, have been working flat out to go-live at the new vehicle inspection service. At the same time we are moving to a taxi licensing service practically identical to that applied for PHVs and taxis will now be required to undertake an MoT every six months at any VoSA approved MoT testing station along with a simple, quick, annual inspection at one of our six new inspection centres.
Through the re-let we have brand new, clean and modern licensing centres in six key locations which we have sourced following extensive discussions with the taxi and private hire trade. As with any change of this nature there are bound to be teething problems and issues but we hope to make the transition to the new services as seamless as possible. When things go wrong we will do our best to put them right as quickly as we can.
While our priority in the coming weeks will be the transition to the new inspection centres we are also putting our new IT systems through rigorous testing and would hope to see some of the new functionality going live as soon as possible following the transition to the new inspection centres.
once delivered some of the improvement and functionality you can expect to see will include:
• The ability to apply and renew online via new customer account web portal
• The ability to track progress of application, upload supporting documents etc.
• Enhanced tracking of applications, reducing delays and lost paperwork / files
• More secure and security enhanced licenses and documentation
• Provision of hand held computers to Compliance officers enabling more efficient compliance activity and access to data on street
We will keep you informed and let you know as and when this functionality becomes available.
In the meantime I do hope you like our new facilities and would welcome any feedback you have. As I said, it won’t be perfect and there will be some issues but we will do our best to minimise them.
Also I am sure the private hire and taxi trade would join me in thanking SGS uk Ltd and all their staff, past and present, for the excellent quality of service they delivered on behalf of TfL to the taxi and private hire trade for the duration of the contract.
John Mason Director of Taxi and Private Hire
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www.lphca.co.uk | [email protected] | @LPHCA Private Hire News | issue 61 | spring 2013 | 55
This unit will be used by all vehicle inspectors to undertake the inspection and record the results.
Later this year, a similar unit will also be provided to all TPH compliance staff to undertake their day and night time duties, with real-time access to the system to easily check records, etc.
From 1st March all the new licence paperwork issued by the Taxi and Private Hire Directorate will contain a barcode.
The new units also contain a barcode reader, which compliance staff will also utilise when on street.
This new technology and the NSL era, we hope, will revolutionise the way licensing and compliance is delivered in London.
We believe that this significant development following the lessons of around 10 years of licensing will help the industry and hinder illegal activity. This project has our total support.
Early Days NewsFollowing the “Go Live” date there were initial teething problems, which to be fair were absolutely expected and quite normal for such a massive changeover. The LPHCA did not get any negative feedback from its Members but we did receive fair warning from Deputy Director Helen Chapman of ‘early days’ difficulties and teething problems.
We very much appreciated the call from Helen who said:
“Thanks for your understanding following our discussion. With any go-live we accept there will be issues that have to be ironed out and while we started the day in a more difficult position than we would have liked it was much smoother by close of play.
There have been one or two unhappy customers at the individual sites but we did make sure the coffee machines were set to ‘free vend’ and at some of the sites we made pastries available, which seems to have gone down well.”
From the LPHCA’s perspective the call and the honest update was very much appreciated.
Helen also said that London operators had been sent the following on (Taxi day 1 – PHV day 2):
From today our new inspection centres are live across London. We know the location of inspection sites is very important to you and we have worked closely with the taxi and private hire trade representatives to deliver a range of sites and locations that provide increased coverage across Greater London as well as improved facilities.
We are confident that in the longer term our new inspection centres will bring significant benefits to you, with more accessible sites, better facilities and a quicker inspection process. As well as that we will also be making significant changes to the delivery of our driver and operator licensing service which will include the ability for you to apply and renew online. The date for these changes will be announced in the coming weeks.
For a full list of sites and facilities please visit www.tfl.gov.uk/tph or see the TPH notice that we issued earlier today. (Notice 09/13)
Making significant changes and introducing any new service is always challenging and we anticipated it would take some time to get up to speed. We provided as much staff training as was physically possible before go-live but nothing can replace practical experience of using the new system. Throughout the course of today we have experienced some localised issues for example inspections are taking longer at some sites and the production of the new licences is causing delays but we are working hard to resolve these issues and get into business as usual as quickly as possible.
Please be assured that we are doing everything possible to overcome these initial teething problems and we will have all vehicles and drivers on their way as soon as possible. On behalf of TfL and our service provider NSL we would like to apologise for any inconvenience you may have experienced.
In the meantime we thank you and your drivers for your patience during this time.
If you would like to be included on the distribution list for our regular In Gear bulletins, please email [email protected] or alternatively all information on our new vehicle licensing service can be found at www.tfl.gov.uk/tph
In recent times we have had some difficulties and disagreements with the Taxi and Private Hire Directorate but the work put in by John Mason and Helen Chapman on this massive project should be commended.
We sincerely hope that the new NSL service delivers stunning results and once the initial teething problems are ironed out the LPHCA is absolutely confident that Licensing Authorities across the uk will look towards London Licensing as the benchmark for the future.
Any Members experiencing any difficulties should contact us but we are not expecting too many calls (if any) and we would ask everyone to have patience and understanding if things go wrong in the early days.
