In the last couple of yraes a new form of Topographical test was started by TFL for people looking to work as PCO drivers (cab/uber/private hire, etc) in London.

The application process costs hundreds of pounds and takes months to be processed.

Failing the Topographical test twice means your application is scrapped, and you are forced to start that process again and spend hundreds of pounds more and wait months again before you can possibly start work on condition you pass.

The Topographical test is obsolete and based on using London A-Z map to plan routes and identify points of interest.

Since it's recent stringent update more and more people who are needing work and looking to cabbing as a means of income are failing the test, having spent hundreds of pounds and waited months, all because if a test that serves no practical purpose. 

In the last decade and a half, satellite navigation / phones , etc have replaced the A-Z and are almost always the means for drivers navigating as they drive. There is very, very little use in today's world for A-Z maps, if any at all. 

This Topographical test is denying hundreds if not thousands of people the opportunity to earn a decent, honest income as a private hire driver.

I have had years of difficulty finding work and recently spent almost all of my savings buying a car and paying for the application, training, test involved in the hope of becoming a PCO licensed driver.

All I would like is to be able to earn a simple, honest income as a PCO driver, but it seems that TFL have made it very, very difficult for people to receive a license, whilst charging extortionate amounts of money and making passing a completely pointless and very difficult test a requirement to receive a license.

Please sign my petition to help those like me who wish to be off the welfare and work in a job that they would feel comfortable in, and put an end to this Topographical test.