Single rate for all taxis, the regional government's proposal

The General Director of Transport of the Government of the Canary Islands, María Fernández, has proposed this Monday to the Taxi Board a single rate that establishes a single price that is "quite easy to understand", without extras or supplements that depending on the municipality can be charged or not.

María Fernández, in statements to the media before meeting in Tenerife with the Taxi Board, has indicated that this rate is "a possibility" that does not hurt the powers of the city councils, since the municipalities that have their own "specificity" will be able to keep it.

However, she added, there is a majority of city councils that, due to the impossibility of means, materials and human resources, often find it difficult to update the rates, giving rise to certain "imbalances" in the archipelago.

"What we intend with this single rate is to open the door to those city councils that wish to establish these single rates" promoted by the Government of the Canary Islands", she stated.

In this way, she argued, a homogenization will be made possible and "easy understanding by users" will be achieved, and it will also facilitate the entry of technological tools that can predict a journey and its cost anywhere in the archipelago, regardless of where the taxi is located.

In short, she indicated, it is about "facilitating, homogenizing and in some way providing security to the person who takes the taxi as to how much the journey will cost".

And thus make many users who today, due to lack of information, do not choose taxi transport do so as an option that is often "even better than driving your own car".

Bringing this single rate proposal to the Taxi Board this Monday is "a first step" with which the Executive intends to establish a roadmap with a draft and with amounts for that single rate.

"We hope that in the different boards throughout this year we can have a final draft so that next year we can start the steps for its final approval, the general director insisted.

She insisted on the importance of "improving and modernizing the sector" and, in addition, modifying all those regulations and rules that affect the taxi sector in order to update them to European regulations and "really be able to provide a service as demanded by users".

In addition, she detailed that the agenda includes legislative modifications to update the sector and be able to provide a better service.

The Government also defends a pilot project for a flat rate for the airports of certain points of the islands, a proposal that they will discuss with the sector, the councils and the Fecam.

In this line, María Fernández has advocated for taxis to be able to operate in joint provision areas, established by the councils together with the sector so that they are not limited only to ports or airports and make them extendable to events, such as a world cup, a carnival or the Sunday market.

The objective, she continued, is to facilitate that taxis from different municipalities can make "a joint provision" due to a certain increase in demand.

According to the general director, in this table there is a representativeness "of everyone", from the public sector, the private sector and consumers and users.