Twenty-four taxi companies in Rochdale have formed a single co-operative organisation called Tiger 2000.

Professional Driver Magazine reported that the 24 firms include Tiger Cars, 2000 Cars, Castle Taxis, Strand Taxis, United Millennium, Central Newline, Town Taxis, Cozy Cars and Heywood Cars. The move is designed to maximise working opportunities for drivers in the borough and improve the customer experience.

Passengers will still be able to use the same phone number for each individual firm, or use a new Tiger 2000 app to book a ride.

James Scholes, Tiger 2000 manager, said

“As soon as Covid hit straight away the taxi trade took a massive nosedive. We were still providing a service for essential users like the NHS. Every firm dropped to about 10% of the workforce. There wasn’t even enough work for that 10%, and their earnings were down nearly 80%.

“Obviously it fills that gap of the number of drivers we lost because of the pandemic. We’ve got a fantastic firm, we probably now carry 80% of the taxi users in Rochdale on a daily basis.

“Some people are resistant to change but I’d like people to know we’ve done it for better customer service and if you combine the experience of all these firms together it runs into hundreds of years."