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 Au ...

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 driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice ...

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 cloth ...

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

, and

toll road A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road (almost always a controlled-access highway in the present day) for which a fee (or ''toll'') is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implemented ...

industries. For example,

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

WestConnex WestConnex is a predominantly underground motorway scheme in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. As of 2022, it is partially completed and partially still under construction. A joint project of the New South Wales and Australian governments, t ...

motorways charge such a fee. From the Australian

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...

industry, the expression has recently begun to spread to other

English-language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

countries as business

jargon Jargon 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 that context. The conte ...

for an initial fixed fee for establishing each phone call. The logic behind 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 The termination rate is one of the three components in the cost of providing telephone service, and the one subject to the most variation. On every long-distance call in the United States, the customer pays for: * Origination (dial tone service) ...

, 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 exactly 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 all ...

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

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

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

Origin

The origin is a

expression for the minimum charge for hiring a taxi to which the rate per kilometre or mile, and a rate per minute is usually added, and the total is added to a minimum taxicab road speed. 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 metony ...

s, which were equipped with a

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

-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