ALL taxi drivers in Oxford should offer customers the chance to pay by card, according to a black cab driver.

Ali Dar, 33, who works in the city, claimed some drivers who are members of COLTA (City of Oxford Licensed Taxicab Association) were still not accepting card payments.

He said this anomaly was causing problems on the rank at Oxford railway station and urged COLTA members to bring their payment systems up to date.

Mr Dar said: “As far as I’m aware it has been compulsory for black cab drivers in London for a number of years to accept card payments.

“These days a lot of people don’t deal in cash - they want to use their cards instead and this is causing real problems on the rank.

“Passengers are getting off the train and approaching the first driver on the rank but when they find out he doesn’t accept cash they go to the second in the queue and sometimes get told the same thing.

“If it happens three or four times in a row it’s not surprising if customers then call a private hire company or use an app instead.”

Mr Dar said one woman customer told the other day that the cab driver only took cash accused drivers of ‘tax dodging’.

He added: “Of course that’s not the case at all but you can understand customers getting frustrated.

“I think it should be compulsory for all taxi drivers in the city to accept card payments by January 1.

“I have my own card reader to take payments and if I can do it others should be able to.”

In September the rapidly expanding mytaxi app service picked Oxford as its latest launch destination.

Mytaxi works with existing black cab drivers to provide pick-ups within five minutes of hailing.

It is designed so drivers can balance online work while also still being available to be hailed from the roadside.

COLTA secretary Sajad Khan said he estimated that about 20 per cent of drivers ‘probably still did not accept card payments’.

He added: “Those drivers are elderly who work part-time.

“I personally don’t think there is a need to make this compulsory. We are not dealing with the sheer numbers of London drivers, or the kind of passenger numbers they pick up. We are much much smaller in number and as I have said, drivers are investing in portable card machines.

“COLTA regularly communicates with drivers in relation to many other work-related issues including investing in card machines and the need to modernise. It’s been a slow process in the past but we are most certainly getting the message through as drivers have invested in buying the card machines.”