Green Taxi Nottingham

" "to get us all to East Midlands Airport.

A taxi arrived on schedule and collected us on our way back. and we were very pleased with the level of customer satisfaction."

Nottingham's new cabins are equipped with WiFi and non-contact recharge.

Nottingham's green cabs should be a thing of the past, that was the decision today. Soon, new black-and-white cabs that are already being introduced will become the norm, and by 2020 the green Hackney cars will have disappeared outright. These changes are taking place as the municipality is preparing for the new government-mandated Clean Air Zone (CAZ), which will require trucks, transporters, busses and cabs to comply with strict new exhaust emissions regulations.

Definitive particulars of the new CAZ have not yet been finalised and it has not been made public whether the regime provides for charging for non-compliant rolling stock. Currently, 406 of the city's 411 green taxis do not comply with the new standard, so almost all need to be superseded.

Starting at around 50,000 pounds, the new cabs are fitted with Wi-Fi and a non-contact shop. Most of the taxi companies in the new taxi fleets do not produce green cars. That would mean that after the starting capital expenditure, taxi drivers would have to spend around 2,000 pounds to have the car repainted.

Instead, the taxi will be dark and carry a large Nottingham emblem on the hood to differentiate it from rental cars and taxi's from other parts of the state. Each taxi will use an application named MyTaxi, which allows travellers to call a taxi from their mobile number.

Commenting on the new, more economical cars, Richard Antcliff, Director of the Labour-run Nottingham City Council's licencing, said they are likely to save around 120 per rider in terms of petrol, while the car will cost around 150 pounds to lease. Today the Ecofin summit has also reached an agreement to loosen the regulations on publicity, which means that more space on the taxi can be used for publicity, which, according to Mr Antcliff, could bring extra revenue for taxi operators.

"Regarding a reputation problem, there is currently a bad stigmatism in the green Hackney cabins, if you look at the commentaries in the public relations press, there are a lots of legends about the fares and the loading rates, it's a pretty battered mark, so the notion of changing from green to dark is almost there to recharge your reputation.

"We' re asking them to make a fairly large car purchase, and I don' t think we should be raising extra costs for the paint. 35-year-old Kaleem Ashraf from Beeston has been riding Hackney cars for eight years and is one of the first drivers to try out the new taxi cars.