Taxi Drivers in Savannah Take a Hit

Look in the Yellow Pages to call a cab.......you'll, at least, have a lot of choices, two pages worth, in fact.
Does a city our size really need that many? A lot of the drivers will answer that with an emphatic "no" because there are so many now, the dollars are getting stretched way too thin.
Take a ride with News Three’s Community Reporter Alice Massimi and cabbie Shannon Liles.

For the past eight years driving a taxi has been Shannon Liles livelihood.
“It was really good it was amazingly good! I used to come out and enjoy my job and if I knew that cab drivers made this money I would have been doing it since day one,” exclaims Cabbie Shannon Liles.
If only Liles could shift time in reverse... after several profitable years, business has hit the breaks.
“Next thing you know all these cab companies are popping up, you know superman cab you know you name it and you'll see it on a cab,” points out Liles.
With no regulation, the market was flooded... too many cabs and not enough customers.
Pair that with the economy Liles says it's a double whammy.... one that cost him at least thirty percent of what he had been making.
“You know you start to buy a gallon of milk once a week instead of twice a week, you start to watch your money. Most cab drivers can come out here and make up for it by working 15 hours instead of 12. You know you don't want to work 15 hours you know it’s not safe, but you are forced almost to do it because you have to provide,” he says.
The city is trying to help the cab drivers. One way is by limiting the amount of cabs on the streets. They are hoping that will mean more business for a few, rather than barely any for many.
“They originally came to us with the idea of moving to a regulated system, much like what is used in other cities, where we would set a target number of taxis,” explains the City of Savannah’s Director of Mobility Sean Brandon.
That's just fine for Liles who signed a petition asking the city to freeze the number of taxi's here.
“The city has finally realized what they've done by putting too many permits on the streets. So I think that is a jump in the right direction,” says Liles
Hopefully it will put Shannon Liles business back in gear.

The city says they've also added taxi stands and have helped the drivers put a fuel surcharge in to place.... all in an effort to put more money in the driver’s pockets.