Flagfall, or flag fall, is a common

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Aus ...

expression for a fixed start fee, especially in the

taxi A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a Driving, driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of thei ...

haulage Haulage is the business of transporting goods by road or rail between suppliers and large consumer outlets, factories, warehouses, or depots. This includes everything humans might wish to move in bulk – from vegetables and other foodstuffs, to c ...

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

, and

toll road A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road for which a fee (or ''Toll (fee), toll'') is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implemented to help recoup the costs of road construction and ...

industries. For example,

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

WestConnex WestConnex in Sydney, Australia is the largest and longest road tunnel in Australia, with a length of 22 km. A joint project of the New South Wales and Australian Federal governments, the motorway scheme created around motorway with 6-10 lan ...

motorways charge such a fee. From the Australian

mobile phone A mobile phone or cell phone is a portable telephone that allows users to make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while moving within a designated telephone service area, unlike fixed-location phones ( landline phones). This rad ...

industry, the expression has recently begun to spread to other

English-language English is a West Germanic language that developed in early medieval England and has since become a English as a lingua franca, global lingua franca. The namesake of the language is the Angles (tribe), Angles, one of the Germanic peoples th ...

countries as business

jargon Jargon, or technical language, is the specialized terminology associated with a particular field or area of activity. Jargon is normally employed in a particular Context (language use), communicative context and may not be well understood outside ...

for an initial fixed fee for establishing each phone call. The logic behind it is believed to be a method used by Australian mobile phone companies to recover a component of the carriage charges that they incur in completing a call to a subscriber. Called

termination rates In telephony, the termination rate is one of the three components in the cost of providing telephone service, and the one subject to the most variation. Components On every long-distance call in the United States, the customer pays for: * O ...

, they are based on the price terms and conditions for the mobile terminating access service (MTAS). The

Australian Competition & Consumer Commission The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is the chief competition regulator of the Government of Australia, located within the Department of the Treasury. It was established in 1995 with the amalgamation of the Australian Tra ...

is reviewing such arrangements. The expression is also beginning to find its way into other businesses as a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

to "start fee". The taxi expression is also being used in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, and some other countries, but it has not been used there as a general synonym for a start fee.Collins Dictionary: flagfall
/ref>

Origin

“Flagfall” is a

word that means the minimum cost for hiring a taxi. When the taxi meter is started, your cost starts at the flag fall value, and increases with distance travelled or time taken. When the passenger steps inside the taxicab, the flagfall condition is triggered and the taxicab driver can start the taximeter. Even if the passenger has not yet instructed the driver where to go, the driver is entitled to the flagfall and the rate per minute component even if the taxi is not moving. The term "flagfall" dates back to the old mechanical

taximeter A taximeter or fare meter is a mechanical or electronic device installed in taxicabs and auto rickshaws that calculates passenger fares based on a combination of distance travelled and waiting time. Its shortened form, "taxi", is also a meton ...

s, which were equipped with a

flag A flag is a piece of textile, fabric (most often rectangular) with distinctive colours and design. It is used as a symbol, a signalling device, or for decoration. The term ''flag'' is also used to refer to the graphic design employed, and fla ...

-like lever that could be seen from outside the cab. When the "flag" was up and visible, the cab was not occupied. When a passenger stepped in, the driver turned the lever down, the "flag fall", and the taximeter started counting. In Australia, once the taximeter is counting, there are orange tariff indicator lights on the taxi head sign that light up to show that the taxicab is hired.

References

External links

Explanation about the taxi origin of the expression
->
Document from the Western Australian government about flagfall charges in the rail industry
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20081123070022/http://www.oracletelecom.com.au/glossary/display/f/glossary/page-1.html Glossary from Australian Oracle Telecom, showing the expression used for phone costs Australian English {{term-stub

Origin

See also

References

External links