Transport Minister Dr. Ewart Brown last night admitted he still had a lot of work to do to reform the taxi industry after passengers complained they were ripped off by a greedy cab driver.

A resident, who did not wish to be named, said he and his girlfriend got a cab home to Devonshire after arriving at Bermuda International Airport on a late flight from New York.

But he said before the vehicle pulled away, the taxi driver allowed somebody else waiting in line to share their cab with them.

The first drop off point was in Devonshire and the second was Paget, where the other passenger lived.

However, when it came to paying, he said the driver wanted to be paid in full twice - despite the drop off points being close to each other.

The disgruntled passenger said: "We arrived at our destination and I offered the gentleman (other passenger) 75 percent of the fare indicated. Upon this act, our driver refused to give us our bags unless we paid the full fare and stated: "You are sharing only the taxi, not the fare."

Outraged at the demand, the passenger said he asked the cab driver for his licence number, which he gave, and then paid the full fare and collected his bags.

But before driving off, the taxi driver retorted: "This is policy."

The Devonshire man added: "This is theft. The other passenger is also expected to pay the full fare, providing the cab driver with a `nice little earner'.

"Surely, this is an example of why there is certainly a need for a central dispatch system."

But this is not the first time people have complained about taxi drivers taking advantage of shared taxis. Others have also reported the same things happening to them.

Transport Minister Dr. Brown said if the claim was true, it "disturbed" him.

He said: "Even if the details aren't accurate, I'm still disturbed because we have a dissatisfied customer.

"The central dispatch would just be able to identify people like this, but it would not be able to stop people from doing it. But if we have an identity we can fix it - even without a central dispatch."

And he agreed that it was pure "greed" on the part of the driver.

He added: "It's a rip off. We have a lot of work to do to ensure that these things don't happen. What this driver did was wrong. These things should be fixed, and we are aiming to fix them."

Lee Tucker, spokesman for the Bermuda Taxi Owners Association, said last night that he believed the problem was not down to greed of some taxi drivers, but ignorance of the policy.

However, he said he did not agree with what the cab driver had done.

He said: "What this driver did was not policy, and I do not approve of it. The policy is that the fare covers the entire car.

"I believe there should be changes in the law to enable taxi drivers to offer shared cabs, with the price worked out separately. We could put in shared metres and each person could be asked to pay whatever was on their metre. It would benefit both the passengers and the drivers."

Director of the Transport Control Department Kevin Monkman said if details of the taxi driver were passed on to his department, the case may be reviewed.

But he said they were also looking at starting a shared cab programme once the controversial introduction of the central dispatch system was resolved.

He said: "My feeling is that taxi drivers should not get paid twice for a journey. We certainly don't encourage that."