The Yaiza City Council and the municipality's taxi drivers met this Wednesday to assess proposals to improve the service, once Easter Week is over.
At the meeting, the taxi drivers were represented by the North and South Taxi Drivers Cooperative of Lanzarote, who presented complementary proposals to improve the provision of the service. From the City Council they anticipate that the Institution is already preparing “a new socioeconomic study to evaluate whether or not it is appropriate to grant more municipal licenses”.
“At specific times of high demand we could have reinforcements from Tías and San Bartolomé, but we understand that any decision must be made in consensus with the Cooperative, to whom we thank for their total willingness to listen and propose contributions”, says the southern mayor, Óscar Noda.
From the City Council they emphasize that in addition to the study for the granting of possible new licenses, the City Council is considering the revision of rate 1, the urban rate, due “to the evident increase in vehicle maintenance costs”.
In addition to the mayor, the Councilor for Tourism, Ángel Domínguez, the Councilor for Transportation, Fátima Viñoly, and a delegation from the Cooperative headed by its president, Juan Manuel Pomar, a taxi driver from the tourist town of Playa Blanca, participated in the meeting.
“The taxi is an essential service in Yaiza and in any tourist destination, so we are concerned about incidents in its provision such as queues at stops or waiting times when there are service requests through the telephone line, because that harms professionals and the image of a destination like Yaiza that we have the obligation to pamper”, emphasizes the mayor.
The service in Yaiza is currently provided with 67 cars, although from the City Council they point out that “many of them do not work double shifts”, and that at night, in times of high hotel occupancy, “it is notorious that the offer does not quite satisfy the demands of the demand”.
From the southern Consistory they add that another factor that triggers demand is “the lack of transfer vehicles by tour operators to cover trips to the airport”. The City Council and the taxi drivers agreed to hold new meetings to advance improvements, with both parties also estimating that the cooperatives should meet among themselves to share proposals for common incidents.
