Pool Cars in Liverpool is one of many taxi firms within the city and on the whole they do a great…read morejob and are very reliable with their service. On moving to the Kensington area I found that some firms were reluctant to come to the area late at night as they were wary of any trouble as the area has something of a bad reputation on the whole. This was never a problem with Pool Cars who always sent a taxi out swiftly and even at peak times the wait is normally quite short on the whole. The drivers are friendly and always willing to wait for you at shops and cash points without any complaint at all as well as always being up for a chat whether you are drunken or otherwise. Mainly though the prices are great a taxi to town is rarely over five pounds and as a student this is great value. So on the whole friendly, reliable and cheap.

I always enjoy travelling with Uber and find Uber in Manchester to be managed very well, much…read morebetter than other cities across Europe, North America and even London, where I have accounted many more issues. Fares are incredibly reasonable, even on holidays where many local providers would charge time and half, to double, Uber seem to always charge a fair that is still good value. Of course, surges can still happen at peak times, but they never seem to go as crazy as they once did, back when Uber first launch they often reached between 2 and 4 times the original fare, but it is very rare it comes close to that now. Most drivers are friendly with high-quality and new cars, delivering a good service. They have a great selection of cars including the standard flagship Uber X, including fancier executive cars, and even a small selection of WAV's for those with disabilities. I also like how Uber gives back a lot to the community here in Manchester, so it doesn't feel like a big company taking over the taxi scene and giving nothing back, they have run promotions in the past in order to help fund free rides to get people to polling stations and vaccination centres, both of which I managed to take advantage of. The Uber app is convenient, easy to use and what of course made Uber well-known in the first place, I love the safety features of being able to send your journey link to a friend, contact emergency services on board and even be able to see the name and photo of your driver, with his license plate before boarding, making sure you get in the right car and avoiding the awkwardness of asking a private hire driver if he was your car, as it's right in front of you. Of course, mistakes go wrong, I have had some particularly terrible experiences with specific drivers that have gone terribly wrong, from minor mistakes to major ones that almost made me want to ditch the platform for good, but whenever I notify Uber about these experiences, they often take complaints very seriously, one of them was a safety issue which I had to report to Manchester City Council, but they treated everything with the gravitas the situation deserved. Uber generally offers a much greater service that the local taxi firms can't match, from friendlier drivers to nicer cars, this is a huge plus point on its' own before you even consider how great the app is. Having had so many issues with local firms and black cabs over the years, Uber is a fresh of fresh air, and I'd be lost without them in Manchester. 5*

Thanks to Toby S, Uber has entered my life. It is uber good. It's like hailing a cab, except you…read morehail it with your phone from inside instead of with your rain drenched arm on the street. This combines the convenience of hailing a cab instead of having to figure out a time to pre order with the convenience of knowing a car is coming (you get told the exact time and can track a little black car bobbing along the map on the app), with none of the inconvenience of either. Even more conveniently, payment is taken automatically from your credit card so you don't need cash. AND it's cheaper. I think what speaks loudest for Uber is how happy the drivers are with it, every single driver I've met so far (about five, I'm getting a bit addicted) has been so excited about how great a system it is and how much better it is making their lives.

One of the most fun experiences in Manchester is riding the tram. I enjoy the city and suburban…read moreviews, the other passengers are always friendly and the most exciting part is when they have a raid on the tram to ensure all patrons have paid the correct fair. The police and revenue protection officers block all doors and its funny to watch people trying to get off and when they recognise regular travellers without tickets.

I have a love-hate relationship with the Metrolink in Manchester, there are so many things which…read moreare good, yet so many things which are terrible about the service. Metrolink is arguably one of the best ways to get around Manchester, in terms of speed, you skip the traffic of the roads, hopping on the tram which is always handy, especially with multiple stops having Park and Ride facilities, meaning you can park your car and go about your journey. Obviously, there are some exceptions, for example, if you're heading to Manchester Airport from the city centre, you would want to take the train which takes around 20 minutes, compared to getting the tram, from Manchester Piccadilly it would be a 57-minute journey, across two trams, changing at Cornbrook. Metrolink are also doing very well during difficult circumstances, they're maintaining the best route frequency to allow people to travel when needed, and space out too, the trams are often around every 10-12 minutes on most routes, meaning there's never too long to wait before getting a tram. They are also cleaning trams every two hours to make sure they are COVID-safe and secure, I think this is a reasonable time-frame given the circumstances. The trams are mainly comfortable and pretty spacious, the floor does get very slippy in the rainy weather, which we get more than our fair share of in Manchester so watch-out! There are 8 lines and 99 stations, all of the lines seem to call through Cornbrook, with 7/8 lines calling at Deansgate-Castlefield and Pomona, so you can pretty much get to any stop from anywhere if you're willing to change services along the way, but it would depend on how realistic it is, for example, it wouldn't be worth going from Sale to Sale Water Park, despite being only a couple of miles away it would be a long tram journey due to the construction of the lines meaning you'd have to change at Trafford Bar. All stations are step-free too, so that supports access for disabled people/trams without the need for ramps, sometimes the access is awkward and it is a good walk from the platform to the street, especially in stations away from the city centre outside of Zones 1 and 2, so again you might want to plan ahead. I do like the zone system as it simplifies the ticketing process (just touch in with your contactless card and be charged the lowest fair), it also means that if you are just going one-stop, you won't be charged for going into two zones, as when the zone changes, the preceding station is the following zone. Example) Sale - Zone 3 Brooklands - Zones 3/4 Timperley - Zone 4 The huge cons I have with Metrolink have to be, their customer service can often be pretty poor, I've tried to phone them many times, even using the customer service help point at the stations only to be greeted with the message "This person's phone is turned off", I get staff are having to work from home during the pandemic, but it's called "work from home" not "turn your phone off and ignore passengers from home" Other issues are, I hate how the trams don't have card scanners, Metrolink is one of the few trams I've used in Europe to not have either a conductor or anywhere you can scan your pass on board, this means if you're rushing for a tram, you could potentially miss your service through having to stop at the platform to touch-in, which is pretty ridiculous. I do think conductors on the trams would be great, especially to avoid this problem and stop anti-social behaviour, which can be a problem especially in certain areas/routes, it would also help tackle fair dodging and provide money to actually improve services, I openly heard a person bragging about the trams being free... due to a lack of inspections. It's great to see Metrolink working on expanding their routes too, in March 2020, they had a quiet launch of the Trafford Centre line, which finally added Metrolink services to the Trafford Centre, calling at Wharfside for Old Trafford Stadium, Imperial War Museum for Media City, and then Trafford Centre, I do think it's pretty strange how the construction of the new line came early, but the new trams for that line came late, this meant the services have to terminate at Cornbrook right now, which is annoying as it means changing trams. 4* - Still one of the better ways to get around town in most cases, the grey and yellow trams are becoming a symbol of Manchester, like the orange buses used to be, it does have its' flaws including the fact that on a match-day at The Etihad Stadium, they never seem to run enough services which often means waiting for ages and then being packed on the tram like sardines.

Good hidden garage with reasonable prices on MOTs, services and spare parts. Helpful and polite…read morestaff with rather sometimes sedate service but high quality and nothings gone wrong since our cars been sent there. However we've had a few problems where they've missed fairly big problems on the car before we've headed to Kwikfit and they've found the problem. Mixed recommendation from here

bad customer service rude failed my mot took car to 3 other garages which all passed the car all…read morethe 5 reviews they hav are people who work for them I also hav a long list of people who hav had similar experience avoid this garage

I first became aware of Gett around a year ago, or at least a good few months and decided to use…read morethem today having been sent an offer to get £3 off my next 10 rides before the end of the month, because of this it made the prices far more reasonable and I decided to use them twice. Before commenting on each specific trip, I'd like to make some comments on the app. The app its-self is really good and has a great, cool interface which even beats Uber, Gett is very similar to Uber but with black cabs and is still quite a big firm, with Gett in over 100 cities including New York, Tel Aviv, London and my hometown here in Manchester. The app has so many cool features, for example you can see a name, photo and reg plate of your driver, and you can also see where he's ranked in terms of all Gett drivers, as you use Gett you acquire points which of course helps to match you up to a better driver. One thing I don't like however is unlike Uber, which is spread across Manchester, Gett is mainly only in the city centre so towns such as Middleton and Oldham are left out, I do normally struggle getting an Uber in Middleton anyway but it is now impossible with Gett, even if a driver is nearby, unless you hail him down and ask to pay via the app once you're done, there's nothing you can do sadly. The connection to the driver is much more efficient and quicker than Uber too, which is great rather than waiting so long. TRIP 1: Etihad Stadium to Home My first trip was with Kuram A, he was a new driver having started on January 4th 2017, I liked how I could see his average rating which at the time was 4 stars over 15 reviews giving him a ranking of 8657 out of 10587. He seemed nice enough, especially on the phone but the taxi just took far too long to arrive, it took half an hour from the moment I ordered it, and I still ended up paying a waiting fare as the driver didn't start my journey as soon as I was there, meaning it took 3 minutes, which is 1 minute over the two minutes free waiting time allocated, hence a 50p charge to me. Surely he should be the one giving me the money waiting time? If he had to wait 28 minutes, that would be £14 or it would at least be £8 as the original quoted time was 10 minutes, which constantly went up on the app which concerned me, the driver didn't call me of any sort, I did ended up calling him and he seemed nice enough but there wasn't really anything he could do. The cab was really outdated, the ramp was rusty hence leading to a delay, he didn't make any measures to secure me in place, he didn't seem too friendly either to strike conversation, there was no radio, just darkness and unpleasantness, as he constantly kept swearing as the ramp and door was unsatisfactory. The overall journey was okay, it was a set fare and cost £11.98 which is quite reasonable for a black cab, albeit slightly more than the Uber I'd normally get home from the Etihad, but with a surge on and a £3 discount from Gett, this worked out at £8.98 at excellent value for money, apart from the extra £0.50 added onto this of course. TRIP 2: Manchester Crowne Plaza Hotel to Home A day later, I used Gett again and I travelled with Driver Javaid A, he had a much better average rating than the person who picked me up yesterday, mainly down to serving more customers since he started in August 2015, he had an average of five stars across 139 journeys giving him an overall ranking of 3963. He however seemed really unfriendly, he didn't say anything to me, he didn't even offer to help me in with the doors or ramps, or strapping me down for health and safety reasons. The car wasn't very nice either, despite it being a fixed fare he did put the meter on, which was concerning as it was a fixed fare journey, albeit I couldn't help but raise a smirk when the meter was around £2 over the set fare price of £11.83 which equalled £8.83 after my discount, which is cheaper than what I'd normally pay to get home from Manchester centre. The taxi was much quicker too, he arrived and the journey started within 3 minutes. Overall, I really like Gett mainly down to the cool features it has and the interface of it, and it doesn't have the surge pricing with Uber has, and even at busy times has the same set fare, which is really good however the black cabs remain old, and not very nice and the two drivers I've had certainly don't have great customer service skills either, albeit Gett probably class this as "The best drivers get the best customers", so i hope with my promotion in the Loyalty Programme from "Newbie" to "Fan" will lead to better drivers, cars and customer service. I can only hope. I like the concept for Gett but sadly at the moment, the two poor drivers I have had and the very small areas Gett's can be found in result in a high two star rating, albeit I hope to come back for an updated review with a higher rating.