Brenda Troutt said she feels like she's become a broker on the New York Stock Exchange during the past few weeks as the cab drivers she directs around Christiansburg and Blacksburg report the almost constant rise and fall of fuel costs.

As the morning dispatcher for Blacksburg Taxi and Christiansburg Cab Service, Troutt is accustomed to relaying street numbers, fare estimates and guesses at how long it will take a cab to pick up the next customer. But the chant of competing gas prices is something new.

The drivers call in any changes in prices they happen to see as they travel to and from jobs in search of whatever gas is cheapest that day.

As local fuel prices have climbed steadily during the past few months from less than $2 a gallon to a high of more than $3, Irene and Jerry Vaughn and other local taxi service operators have started to worry about the viability of their businesses.

And the drivers who depend on the company for their livelihoods and the riders who depend on the cabs for transportation are getting squeezed, too.

Ten cents here or there makes a big difference to a cab driver, said Irene Vaughn, owner and operator of Blacksburg Taxi and Christiansburg Cab Service.

Just a few days go, Vaughn said she found a station selling gas for $2.69 a gallon. That's considered a good price this week.

As she pulled in to fill her own tank, she jumped on the radio to Troutt and the rest of the half-dozen drivers who were on duty then.

"I told them get down here quick before they raise it," Vaughn said.

Sure enough, about five minutes later, Vaughn said she watched the station change its price board to $2.79.

The higher costs are nibbling away at the drivers, who mostly work as independent contractors, Vaughn said.

In exchange for the use of a company car, the drivers pay half of what they make during each shift to the Vaughns. They also have to pay for gas with their own money.

To make ends meet for both the company and the drivers, the Vaughns have raised their prices at the Christiansburg location to $6 for the first mile and $2 for every mile thereafter.

They say they need to raise their rates in Blacksburg, too. But they can't because town council regulates taxi fees by ordinance. So does Radford City Council.

In Blacksburg, cabs can charge only up to $3 for the first mile and $1 for each additional mile. Radford's rates are similar.

To help the Vaughns and other taxi operations, which are mostly small, locally owned businesses, Blacksburg's council two weeks ago approved an emergency ordinance to add a 40-cent fuel surcharge per mile to taxi fares.

But more permanent relief will have to wait until council takes up the issue again in November.

Meanwhile, the Vaughns have to consider their customers' needs, too. Irene Vaughn estimates that about 80 percent of her riders live on low and fixed incomes.

Camellia Dobbins of Christiansburg said before she got sick with diabetes and anemia she could easily have spent $100 a week on cab fares to get back and forth to work at Burger King.

Now out of work, Dobbins and her elderly mother, Glenda, depend on taxis to get them to the doctor and to the grocery store.

But if rates go up much more, they may soon not be able to afford the trips, Camellia Dobbins said.