All of Liverpool's black cabs could finally be forced to accept card payments at a crunch meeting next week.
Currently black cabs in the city do not have to be equipped with card machines and the council has been pushing to make them mandatory in an effort to make it easier for passengers.
But the proposals had been deferred after complaints from drivers, with councillors putting off a decision on the issue in April over arguments about where the card is placed.
The council had proposed that card machines be mounted in the back of cabs - but that met fierce opposition from drivers, who argued the machines would be more susceptible to theft or damage.
Now a new report has been brought to Tuesday's licensing committee meeting offering councillor's two options on where to locate the machines, either in the passenger compartment or in a holder on the partition between passengers and the driver.
At April's meeting Tom Mcintyre, a Unite officer said black cab drivers see card payments as a 'positive'.
He said: "It's something that should have been coming for a long time. Everybody knows kids don't carry cash these days, we have a major challenge. Where we have a problem is having it in the back of the cab.
"In Liverpool we carry a lot of young girls with prams, little kids sitting in the back, touching the buttons.
"We want this to work. We can implement this in six months, most of the trade are willing to do this. The biggest bugbear is putting this in the back."
If the council backs the move this week it's hoped installation of machines could begin within a month.
