HOW PROFITABLE?
Page 42
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
THE FINANCES of Belfast's black taxis and their associations are impossible to pin down precisely. There are no statistics on numbers of passengers carried, trips, mileages, or schedules. Asking the operators is no help since either they don't have the information or won't volunteer what they do have. However, some financial data has been supplied or can be arrived at by calculation and, for what it is worth, here it is.
The North Belfast Mutual Association collects £260 a year from each taxi over and above insurance costs, and each taxi pays £2 a week into a benevolent fund. From 95 taxis the association derives annual revenues of £34,580, and from that pays the salaries of' its chairman and one office person, and rent for its modest premises on the Shankill Road. The information was provided by Billy McIlwaine, chairman of the North Belfast Mutual Association.
Estimating the income of black taxi owners is trickier, however. McIlwaine guesses that around £200 a week can be earned if the hours are worked. An estimate can be arrived at front observation and calculation. It takes about 40 minutes to make the round trip, the taxi will fill and empty twice on each leg, and the fare is 30 pence. That yields revenues of £10.80 per hour. Those figures would apply in busy periods where the taxi is filling up rapidly at each end, hence £10.80 would be a maximum.
To take a conservative estimate, assume the taxi takes a full hour for a round trip. Then the revenue per hour would be £7.20. This would yield £288 for a 40hour week, or £432 for a 60-hour week. The biggest single expense for the owner is the insurance and association fee of £813 per week, depreciation expense will not be significant on a £2,000 vehicle, and the reader can provide estimates for fuel, oil and maintenance. Any way it is sliced, the owner is clearing about £4 per hour at a 40hour week, about 15 per hour on a 60-hour week, compared with Citybus wages of about £3 per hour.
That is significantly higher than the guess made by Billy McIlwaine, and more than the estimate provided by Citybus's Heubeck. But it is only an estimate based on incomplete information.