Verifone adds video content to NYC taxi payment terminals

Verifone Transportation Systems adds new programming, including People.com, to the content available on the interactive mobile information screens within its payment and information system in New York City taxis. 6,500 New York City taxis habe been committed to agreements for in-taxi acceptance of credit cards.

VTS is also providing content from PMbuzz.com source of information and Disney Broadway, which makes Disney classics available. The VTS system features a Passenger Information Monitor with a 10.4-inch touchscreen monitor that features programming from a host of providers, including WABC-TV’s local news, AccuWeather, Reuters Business News and the Zagat Survey.

The VeriFone-based option was installed as part of a mandate from the TLC requiring all taxis to offer credit or debit card acceptance and an electronic passenger map and information screen. The wireless-based credit card transaction system meets payment card industry (PCI) standards and does not store any unencrypted data.

Editor.

Rehab set-back for bank robber

Rehabilitation for double bank robber and long-time solvent sniffer Anthony Trevor Grafton has suffered a setback with a conviction for stealing a can of spray-paint from The Warehouse.

Grafton told the police he took the $9.99 spray can because he was addicted.

Court News reporters have not seen him at court since he got onto a serious rehabilitation programme at Nova Lodge.

That was early last year, when the 38-year-old beneficiary was said to be making impressive progress to overcome his 20-year drug habit.

He had surprised everyone by sticking to the programme.

It was a chance for him, because he was due for sentence for two bank robberies committed in early 2006 when he was desperate for money to buy drugs.

Grafton demanded money from tellers at two Christchurch banks. He made his getaway in taxis both times. Only $100 — used to pay a taxi fare — has been recovered of the $1300 he took. He was bound to be caught because he was so well known, did not use a disguise within view of the security cameras, and used taxis to get away.

In the Christchurch District Court today, he admitted shoplifting the spray can on Friday.

Defence counsel Gilbert Hay said Grafton “seems to be in fairly bad shape at present”. He had recently been released from hospital after surgery and was on medication.

Judge Raoul Neave convicted and discharged him.

Cabbies want to be caged

Drivers fear for their lives after attacks

KRISTIAN SOUTH – Sunday News | Sunday, 29 June 2008

TAXI companies are calling for the government to make protective cages in cabs compulsory after a rash of violent attacks on drivers.

But Transport Minister Harry Duynhoven says he won’t introduce such legislation because the cabbies should be taking care of their own safety.

“It’s entirely up to the industry itself to regulate this. It’s not up to the government to legislate,” Duynhoven told Sunday News.

Christchurch’s Blue Star Taxi operations manager Tedi McDonald said attacks on cabbies had become so brutal, drivers had even stopped wearing ties for fear of being strangled from behind.

“There are a lot of attacks going on out there at the moment,” McDonald said.

“A lot of drivers don’t wear ties at night any more because they’ve been strangled with their ties or held back on the seat with them and tied up.

“Our drivers now wear clip ties so if someone grabs them, they will come straight off.

“I believe taxi drivers should have a protective barrier between them and the passenger, similar to what they have in New York, where they’re protected from behind and the sides.”

McDonald said many of the attacks had been over ridiculously small amounts of cash.

“Most of the time we’re only talking about little fares, about $20. There are people out there who are willing to beat someone for less than $20.

“They do it for the fun and the excitement of it,” she said.

“There are hardly any female drivers who will work nights any more and there are a lot of guys who won’t do it now because they’ve been attacked.

“We’re actually finding it hard to keep our cars on the road at night.”

A Christchurch taxi driver, who asked not to be named, said attacks were a distinct possibility when working at night.

“One guy I used to work with got into a fight with a kickboxer,” he said.

“It was over a fare for about $30 and the guy refused to pay and started kicking his car trying to get at him.

“I’ve stopped working nights. It’s not worth the risk.”

Auckland’s Alert Taxis manager Robert van Heiningen said it was crucial the government moved to protect drivers.

“I’ve been working with taxis for 20 years and I’m still banging my head against the wall in trying to get the government to take some sort of action to introduce industry safety standards, because at the moment there is nothing, absolutely nothing,” he said.

“The government needs to legislate and bring our standards up to scratch with those in Australia, where it is compulsory for the drivers to be protected.

“What’s it going to take to make these guys act?

“Are we going to have to wait until some poor taxi driver loses his life?”

National Party transport spokesman Maurice Williamson said the government had to act.

“Safety cages are a very stock standard that cab drivers enjoy in a lot of other countries and perhaps it’s time New Zealand came on board,” Williamson said.

“It’s really sad our society has gotten so bad that ordinary old taxi drivers out there feel threatened while they are at work.”

New Zealand First law and order spokesman Ron Mark said taxi driver safety must be addressed.

“It is certainly something that OSH should be looking at to ensure that these drivers are safe,” Mark said.

“It’s a sad indictment on our nation when people have to limit their occupational duties because of the government’s inability to deal with the violence on our streets.

“When ordinary citizens are too afraid to go out at night either for pleasure or for work, then we have truly lost the plot.”

The text and the taxi driver. ‘I feel violated’

5:00AM Sunday June 29, 2008
By Michelle Coursey

It’s worth paying a little extra to guarantee your safety, says an Auckland woman targeted by a sleazy taxi driver.

Annette Brothers, who works in women’s magazine sales, said that a driver picked her up from the central city in late May after a night out with friends.

The man called her cellphone the following day to advise her she had dropped her wallet in his car.

He offered to drop it off at her home, but his good deed was quickly undone by a text message sent shortly before he arrived.

It said: “It has always been my fantasy to be with a white woman. Please tell me you will be the one.”

“I felt violated,” said Brothers. “They are meant to be professional.”

Brothers said it was her first experience of inappropriate behaviour by a taxi driver, and she called the Taxi Federation to complain when she couldn’t find a listing for the firm.

She said she would be happy to pay a different company $2 more to get home safely.

Land Transport New Zealand spokesman Andy Knackstedt said such incidents should be brought to the attention of the taxi company in the first instance.

Complaints could also be made to LTNZ and police.

The LTNZ’s taxi enforcement team has had 84 complaints in Auckland and Wellington since being launched a year ago.

Fares cop it at the rank

Fares cop it at the rank
5:00AM Sunday June 29, 2008
By Michelle Coursey

One of New Zealand’s biggest taxi firms is set to raise its fares in a move expected to trigger price hikes across the country.

Wellington Combined Taxis, the capital’s largest company, will raise its fares by 15c a kilometre to $2.75 in the next few days, to catch up with steadily rising fuel prices.

Taxi Federation executive director Tim Reddish said fuel accounted for up to a fifth of operational costs and predicted many companies would follow suit.

“What’s generally happened in the past, and what’s happening now, is that companies wait and see for a while until they can’t hold on any longer, and then increase their fares.”

Drivers have reported a drop in business and Reddish said managers faced a tough task retaining customers if they increased fares.

“People’s disposable income is being attacked on all fronts, with rising mortgage costs, rising food costs and rising petrol costs, so it becomes a fine balancing act to increase your fares without encountering consumer resistance,” he said.

Wellington Combined Taxis’ general manager, Kevin Braid, said the decision to raise fares was agonising.

The firm was aware of the financial pressures on its customers and had held off for some time to avoid “killing” its market.

One of Auckland’s leading firms, Alert Taxis, raised its fares two months ago but was “continuously monitoring the situation,” said co-owner Robert van Heiningen.

Keeping costs down, by servicing its own vehicles and converting fleet cars to run on LPG, was helping to ease the pressure.

“But you’d be naive to think for one second that these fuel increases are not having an impact.”

The only taxi company that can guarantee its fares will not rise is newcomer Green Cabs, whose hybrid petrol/electricity fleet charges only $2.30 a kilometre in Auckland and $2.50 in Wellington.

Owner Callum Brown said the fuel costs of its Prius vehicles were one-third those of traditional petrol cars, so the recent petrol price hikes had not affected his company nearly as much as they had other firms.

Brown said there would be no change to fares until a review this November.

Cabbie afraid to work the streets.

The Press | Friday, 27 June 2008

 

On the road: this Gold Band taxi driver is reluctant to drive Christchurch’s streets on Saturday nights because he fears violence.

Semi-retired taxi driver Barry is considering giving up his Saturday night job because of the trouble he faces on Christchurch streets.

Barry, 57, who does not want to be identified, has been driving for Gold Band Taxis for 27 years, and in that time has seen an increase in violence that has left him scared.

“I wouldn’t see a Saturday night go by where I don’t see some kind of fight go down people bottling your car or you, attempted intimidation, I’ve seen it all.”

It is 18 months since Barry has driven down the bar-lined inner-city Strip after 11pm because he considers the area too dangerous.

His car has an automatic-locking system, and he now screens passengers before letting them into his vehicle.

The number of jobs he turns down is increasing too.

“I turn down between two to five jobs every Saturday because of drunkenness, or I don’t like the look of them.”

Three months ago, Barry was attacked in his car by a man because he declined a group of five females who were drunk.

“After I politely refused them, one woman took my identification card, then a guy started smacking me on the back of my head.”

Dodging blows, Barry decided this was not the place to be. “I just buried the boot.”

The incident resulted in a charge of malicious damage, assault and attempted theft from his vehicle, and increased fears for his safety. “It makes me feel scared and not wanting to go to work.” He believes excessive alcohol and the influence of other substances are the main causes of the problems. “We should go back to a 20-year-old drinking age.”

 

Airline chief jokes about free sex on flights

Ryanair chief jokes about free sex on flights
By CRAIG PLATT – The Age | Friday, 27 June 2008

European budget carrier Ryanair has taken its cheeky reputation to new levels, with chief executive officer Michael O’Leary suggesting business class passengers would receive free oral sex on flights.

O’Leary made the saucy remarks during a press conference in Germany about Ryanair’s Trans-Atlantic flights.

Explaining that Ryanair’s long-haul flights would feature a business class that went against Ryanair’s typical low-budget ethos, O’Leary remarked that “in economy it will be very cheap fares, say 10 Euros, and in business class it will be bed and blowjobs”.

While O’Leary’s remark was obviously a joke, he repeated the controversial comment and wanted it translated for the journalists.

“In business class,” he said, “it will all be free – including the blowjobs.”

He then asked the translator the German word for oral sex. After being told there wasn’t one, he remarked “terrible sex life in Germany”.

Last year, Ryanair found itself in trouble over its “Girls of Ryanair” calendar, which featured scantily clad flight attendants posing on board aircraft. Spain’s government-run Women’s Institute called the calendar sexist and complained to Irish and European Union authorities.

Airlines to pay $667m in cargo scam claims

5:00AM Saturday June 28, 2008

Four international airlines have agreed to pay US$504 million ($667 million) in fines to settle charges they conspired to fleece consumers by driving up cargo shipping prices.

The Justice Department called the case one of the largest antitrust settlements in US history.

Associate Attorney-General Kevin O’Connor called the scam an “international price-fixing cartel” that cost consumers hundreds of millions of dollars between 2001 and 2006. In some instances, for example, fuel surcharges rose by 1000 per cent.

One of the four airlines, Air France-KLM, has agreed to pay US$350 million of the total settlement. The other carriers are Cathay Pacific Airways, Martinair Holland and SAS Cargo Group.

“American consumers and taxpayers pour billions of dollars each year into the pockets of these lawbreakers,” said FBI assistant director Joe Persichini. “Let there be no mistake that people in corporations that take consumers and taxpayers in this way are thieves.”

Authorities said executives from each of the airlines met repeatedly in the United States, Europe and Asia to cook up a price-fixing scheme that raised cargo rates, fuel surcharges and security costs for businesses and, ultimately, consumers.

The cartel focused on goods shipped to and from the United States, including electronics, clothing, produce and medicines, O’Connor said.

The settlement agreement, filed yesterday in the US District Court in Washington, still requires a judge’s approval.

The announcement marked the latest in a series of cargo shipping settlements over the past two years. Earlier, British Airways, Korean Air, Qantas and Japan Airlines filed similar agreements as part of the investigation.

In all, airlines have agreed to pay US$1.2 billion in fines that O’Connor called “the highest total amount of fines ever imposed in a criminal antitrust investigation”.

In another action Melbourne law firm Maurice Blackburn is conducting a price-fixing class action in the Federal Court of Australia against seven airlines including Qantas, Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Air New Zealand, JAL and British Airways in relation to the provision of international air freight services since 2000.

- AP, STAFF REPORTER

NZ Sharemarket takes a fall.

10:40AM Friday June 27, 2008
By Simon Louisson

The sharemarket dropped another 1 per cent today to a 2-1/2 year low, sparked by a profit downgrade by retailer The Warehouse and a 3 per cent plunge on Wall Street.

GDP data due today is expected to show the economy went into reverse in the first quarter and is well on its way towards official recession.

The benchmark NZSX-50 was down 42 points to 3249 at 10.20am, its lowest level since December 2005.

The Warehouse dropped 2 per cent after the company downgraded its profit guidance by 10 per cent after a slump in sales from the latter part of May.

Yesterday, shares in retail retailer Briscoe Group fell 12.7 per cent to 96c. They have plunged from $1.70 a year ago but were steady this morning.

The Warehouse shares dropped 8c to 443 and have fallen from 660 in December, but they have been held up on expectations the Court of Appeal will shortly clear the way for supermarket chains Foodstuffs and Woolworths of Australia to launch takeover bids.

The only stock in the top 50 to rise today was oil company NZ Oil & Gas, up 2c to 171.

Among the leaders, Telecom was down 6c to 357, Contact Energy 3c to 847, Fletcher Building 30c to 643.

Selling was across the spectrum but stocks associated with the construction industry were whacked. Among the hardest hit, Nuplex fell 15c to 540, PGG Wrightson 8c to 256, Port of Tauranga 10c to 645, Ebos 13c to 422 and Tower, 5c to 200.

* * *

In the US, stocks tumbled, sending blue chips to a two-year low as oil prices leapt to fresh highs and US sentiment was hit by a barrage of troubling economic and corporate news.

- NZPA

OPEC predict further fuel price rises.

Oil prices could soar as high as US$170 a barrel over the next few months, the president of oil cartel Opec warned today.

Chakib Khelil, president of the group of oil producing nations, forecast that the cost of crude would rise to between USD$150 and USD$170 dollars a barrel this summer.

Algerian energy minister Mr Khelil said in an interview with French television channel France 24 he hoped the oil price spike would ease back later in the year and dismissed market fears of a surge above USD$200s a barrel.

But he cautioned that a major market crisis, such as production stopping in Iran, could see prices rise to USD$200 or more.

Opec’s grim forecast for summer oil prices comes as calls mount for the group to increase oil production and help reduce soaring fuel inflation.

British prime minister Gordon Brown is among a raft of western leaders to have put pressure on Opec as inflation rockets on the back of higher oil and energy bills.

Light, sweet crude for August delivery hit USD$135.10 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

The AA revealed yesterday that average diesel prices hit £6 (€7.60) a gallon for the first time at an average 132.03p per litre – 35% dearer than a year ago.

Average unleaded petrol prices also hit a record of 118.65p per litre yesterday, or £5.39 (€6.80) a gallon, the AA said.

Filling up a tank with 50 litres now costs an extra £10.86 (€13.71) for petrol and £17.38 (€21.94) for diesel compared to a year ago, the figures showed.

Oil hit an all time high of USD$139.89 last week, with prices up 40% since the start of this year alone largely as a result of concerns over global supplies.

But buying from speculative traders keen to protect themselves from a falling dollar is also thought to be behind the spike.

Bank of England governor Mervyn King told MPs today that in “real” terms, when inflation is stripped out, oil prices are now as high as they were in the 1970s.

He also warned that a further rise in oil prices posed the biggest threat to efforts to bring runaway inflation under control.

NZTAXIBLOG