"Veezu Sheffield are taking more money from us than ever before and drivers are feeling the pinch"

Hundreds of taxi drivers gathered outside Veezu’s Sheffield offices today in protest at new commission rates the company are said to have imposed.

The changes came after Veezu acquired local taxi company City Taxis in 2023. Drivers told journalists from The Star, BBC and ITV a previously flat 20 per cent rate had been replaced with differing rates dependent on the total number of jobs drivers complete.

One driver told The Star: “Since Veezu took over things have started to change. The drivers feel that they’ve been manipulated, they’ve been used as experiments for the new fare structure to get money out of them.

“Something that doesn’t need fixing, shouldn’t have changed.

“If we go to Manchester Airport, that job would take us out of Sheffield and we’ll only be able to do one or two more trips in the day. It takes a long time.

“Now, Veezu’s structure has [their take calculated] on the number of jobs, so depending on the amount of jobs we do, they take their cut on a sliding scale, so if you do 12-13 jobs in a week, it starts at 35 per cent. That’s a staggering amount.

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“So if we do Manchester Airport for £85, Veezu used to take £17 of that. At 35 per cent, that goes to £29.75.

“If you take all the costs away - fuel costs, insurance, the time spent - the driver is left with about £30 for four hours work. That’s hardly the minimum wage.”

‘70 hours a week’ to see a difference

During the ongoing cost of living crisis, Veezu have intentionally brought their fares down - in a move drivers say was to undercut Uber. However, at the same time as lowering the fares, Veezu are now said to be taking higher percentage cuts of those fares than ever before.

Another driver said: “Our fares have come down, the price of fuel has gone up, insurance has gone up this year by 25-30 per cent, what we’re paying to them is too high and we’re not saving very much.

“I’ve been doing this job 20 years, I was better off 20 years ago than I am now... Veezu is here because of the drivers, the drivers are what make Veezu, if the drivers weren’t here Veezu wouldn’t be making any money.”

Sheffield’s Veezu drivers say they are facing an increasingly difficult situation and whilst the company acted say they acted in the interests of customers - it seems to have come at the expense of their drivers.

“They lowered the fares to look out for the customers saying that it’s the cost of living,” a third driver said, “But we have our cost of living, we’ve got bills to pay... if their fares are going down, we want [their percentage] to go down. That’s all, that’s fair.”

The Star was told drivers need to complete at least 80 journeys in a week to see a difference. In order to reach the lowest rate on the scale (roughly 12 per cent to Veezu) they must complete more than 100.

A spokesperson for Veezu said: "As self-employed drivers running their own businesses, several of the drivers have proposed commercial terms which Veezu is considering and will be discussing with them in the coming weeks. As self-employed individuals in business, the drivers operate across several different licensed operators in Sheffield and can decide which operator they use.

“Veezu hopes that the drivers continue to operate via our system, but we recognise this is a commercial market and that drivers will choose to drive with different and multiple operators."