With 2019 coming to an end, a year that started with the taxi sector starring in one of the toughest labor conflicts in the city of Madrid , the City Council of the capital now looks towards this means of transport with the intention of introducing important modifications to the year 2020 in a public service that is close to the 16,000 licenses in the region in this course, according to the data provided by the National Statistics Institute (INE).

The intention of the Consistory directed by José Luis Martínez-Almeida is "to offer more guarantees to the taxi user" and "provide greater competitiveness to the sector in the face of the appearance of new alternative transport models," municipal sources point to EL MUNDO. For this, the municipal corporation is committed mainly to two measures: establish a closed rate for the traveler as soon as they contract the service and the creation of an ecological rate in scenarios where traffic is restricted to vehicles due to high pollution, as this has been known Newspaper.

This closed rate would be applied in pre-contracted routes in the style of transport services such as VTC Cabify or Über companies, but with a slight modification. The user will know the closed price of the service at rates 1 and 2 - ordinary routes on any day of the week, weekend or holiday regardless of the time - at the time you make the contract indicating the origin and destination of the journey To make. And that would be the maximum price that the customer would pay, taking into account the parameters that the City Council of the capital is negotiating with the sector.

Although that price will be established at the beginning of the journey, the taxi driver must operate the taximeter when the customer's career begins. Once at the point of destination, it will pay the smaller amount : either the one marked by the meter or the one assigned to it during the hiring of the service.

This model would begin to work on January 1, 2020, municipal sources confirm to EL MUNDO, which ensures that this measure "intends to offer a better and new service to the user" and that at this moment exactly all the details are being agreed with the associations representative of the taxi sector.

The second measure in which they work from the Almeida government team and that they are negotiating with the Community of Madrid is the creation of an ecological tariff. A rate that would apply on the days when the restrictive traffic measures for vehicles are activated when episodes of pollution from nitrogen dioxide emissions occur. In the days in which these assumptions occur, customers will have a 10% discount on the application of rate 1, that is, from Monday to Friday working hours from 7 to 21 hours.

In addition, by 2020, the Consistory has proposed to the taxi sector to unify the maximum price for collection when a service is requested by telephone or telematics in the area of ​​joint provision (APC), which frames both the municipality of Madrid and others 45 of the entire Community .

Currently that maximum amount is five euros in the capital and eight if the collection is made at some other city council in the region. The proposal, as this newspaper has been able to know, includes that it equals those five euros throughout the APC regardless of where the collection takes place.

The project for this modernization of the taxi sector in which the City Council of the capital works is closed with the update of the rates according to the Consumer Price Index ( CPI ) of the transport of the Community of Madrid. An update that will be applied only at fare 2, that is, on night trips from Monday to Friday from 21 to 7 hours and on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays regardless of the time. Thus, the lowering of the flag will go from the 3.10 euros that users currently pay to the 3.15 they will have to pay in 2020 while the price per kilometer traveled will increase from 1.30 to 1.35 .

The Consistory of the capital has already sent this proposal on the rates to be applied in the taxi sector of the joint provision area to the Commission of Prices of the Community of Madrid on November 14, municipal sources point to this newspaper. It is now up to the Commission to assess the municipal proposal and proceed to approval. An approval that will occur, predictably, at the meeting scheduled for next Friday, December 13, where a space has been established for proposals in this sector.

Thus, the year 2020 will begin with important modifications for «the modernization of the sector», which will give it a "greater competitiveness" in the face of the growth experienced by other mobility options such as Uber and Cabify, whose regulation was one of the points that most controversy created in the taxi mobilizations of early 2019.

Even so, despite these modifications in the pre-contracted services or in days where the anti-pollution protocols are activated, the municipal corporation emphasizes that "practically the entire tariff schedule remains unchanged with respect to the rates of this year."

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  • Cabify
  • Madrid's community
  • INE
  • Madrid
  • Uber
  • Cab
  • Strike taxis
  • José Luis Martínez-Almeida

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