Taxi? It's cheaper to fly...

A single £28.50 taxi fare to travel six miles from Notting Hill to Highbury offers the perfect illustration of why the public is angry over the new night rates. Fashion expert Maggie Davis's regular journey, already an expensive luxury, had become almost £5 more expensive overnight.

But the high price of night-time cabs was put into even clearer perspective the following day when she paid £18.50 for a 520-mile flight from Stansted to Copenhagen with budget airline Go.

Ms Davis is one of thousands of Londoners to have experienced the unpleasant shock of taking a black cab at night and discovering the normal fare has shot up.

Since the beginning of November, under new rates approved by Mayor Ken Livingstone, taking a black cab in London after 8pm costs up to 48 per cent more, though the Mayor's Transport for London authority maintains the prices have gone up by a maximum of 30 per cent.

Mr Livingstone agreed the scheme with the taxi driver associations in an attempt to persuade more drivers to work at night, after public complaints, articulated by the Evening Standard, that more and more people were having to turn to unlicensed cabs after a night out in the West End.

TfL created a new tariff after 8pm that has increased fares by about 20 per cent for journeys of two miles, peaking at about 35 per cent for journeys of four miles, and going back down to about 30 per cent for journeys of eight miles.

From 8pm until midnight, anyone taking a three-mile trip from Marble Arch to St Paul's, for example, can expect to pay about £9.20 instead of £6.80. A trip from Piccadilly Circus to Cricklewood, or any other six-mile journey, was £12 but has now gone up to £17.40.

People who live and work in central London are hit hardest. Only the first six miles of the journey are subject to the "inbuilt" extra charge, and most of that charge is loaded heavily onto the first four miles.

Londoners hardened to high charges for public transport are shocked to see a taxi home now costs more than a theatre ticket.

The radio taxi firms in particular are nervous that the main beneficiaries will be minicab operators who are not covered by the rates. One operator said a City bank which is a major account customer estimated the new rates would add £500,000 to its annual taxi bill.

Worryingly for Mr Livingstone, who regards solving the shortage of night cabs as one of his major transport dilemmas, the jury is still very much out on how well his scheme is working.

The bodies that played a key role in drawing up the fares - the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association (LTDA) and TfL - insist they are delivering the key objective of putting more taxis on the streets, and to some extent this is true. Though it is only to be expected when central London is devoid of its usual 450,000 tourists at this time of the year.

Research on the first Friday of November, carried out by the LTDA, found 402 cabs available in an hour at Knightsbridge, 354 in an hour at Oxford Circus and 430 in an hour in Trafalgar Square. The research was carried out between 8pm and 10pm. The quieter period was when people were at a restaurant, cinema or theatre.

Late counts, between 11pm and midnight on Thursday 15 November, found 218 cabs free at Marble Arch and 202 at Aldwych.

Figures compiled by TfL itself during the period when most cabs are needed showed, however, that far fewer cabs were free later in the evening. On the Strand just 80 out of 393 cabs were available from 11pm to midnight.

This apparent excess of free taxis fails to take into account the absence of foreign tourists from the capital this winter. In a normal year, without the events of 11 September, hundreds more overseas visitors would be competing each night to hail down taxis.

Bob Oddy, the LTDA's chairman, said: "You're never going to meet all the demand when there are so many venues and licensed premises crowded into one area of central London."

There is a growing feeling on the taxi ranks that Mr Livingstone and the main taxi associations have drawn up a scheme containing one or two significant flaws. Many cabbies told the Evening Standard the 8pm watershed is "far too early". Passengers resent paying extra at a time when they are more likely to have been working late at the office than coming out of a theatre or restaurant.

Some claim business is being lost at a critical time of the year and want to see the night rates come in at 9pm or 10pm. Geoffrey Riesel, chairman of the Joint Radio Taxi Cab Association, said the charges were "too high and come in too early and the public is being put off ".

He said business at his Radio Taxis company was down 20 per cent in November over the first month of the scheme - and estimated half of that drop was due to higher rates, half due to the economic down-turn.

Most drivers agree the timing of the introduction - after 11 September and in a year when dozens of Christmas office parties are being cancelled because of fears over recession - could have been better. Many said the full consequences will only become clear in the New Year.

January, February and March are known in the trade as the " kipper season" - the traditional lean time when drivers can only afford to dine on fish and not meat - and they fear business at night will fare badly in the New Year.

Geoff, one owner-driver spoken to by the Evening Standard, said: "After 11 September it should have been postponed until April. In the current economic climate the New Year is going to be very tough."

Brian Rice, the chairman of Diala-Cab, said: "They say that there are more taxis but the fact that there are more cabs with their lights on could just be because there are fewer passengers than normal."

Another cabbie, Steve, said many colleagues complain about the "boredom" of driving around trying to pick up a fare, although the higher rates mean they are earning as much as before.

Critics such as Mr Riesel claim the way the scheme has been introduced will benefit the very people it was brought in to drive out of business - the one- man band touts who tend to use uninsured, badly-maintained cars, and carry the threat of rape and robbery, to women passengers in particular.

Mr Riesel said: "This isn't about the public being ripped off by greedy taxi drivers. it's about getting rid of the touts so people can get home safely.

"But the Mayor hasn't timed it right - he should have done more to get rid of the touts before bringing it in."

Fares up a third to tempt drivers
It's like a tax for living in London
...but at least they'll go south of the river