Rome: Council approves 1000 new taxi licenses.

The Capitoline Council has given the green light to two resolutions regarding the taxi service: the first approves the tender for new licenses and the second the remodulation of tariffs.

In the first case the provision increases the number of Taxi with 1000 new licenses; the relevant notice will be published by the end of July.

Thanks to the already introduced “integrative shifts”, The so-called “second guides” che, in recent months they have already reached 450 registrations, the overall number of taxis available on multiple shifts within 24 hours will from 7.700 currently to almost 9.200 in the coming months.

The second resolution instead authorizes a remodulation of the tariffs within the limit of the expected inflation index; the initial increase in the taximeter, frozen since 2012, goes from 3 to 3,50 euros on weekdays during the day and goes from 7 euros to 7,50 euros at night, from 22 pm to 6 am. Furthermore, the minimum fare of 9 euros is introduced (currently about 3% of total fares are below this threshold).

The minimum fares rise from 50 to 55 euros and from 31 to 40 euros respectively from Fiumicino and Ciampino airports to arrive within the Aurelian Walls (35 and 25 euros the minimum fare for destinations outside the Walls). The discount for women looking for a taxi to get around at night rises from 10 to 15%, while the discount for those who have to go to the hospital or for those who are leaving a nightclub and don't feel like driving remains at 10%, while it is introduced a 10% discount for those over 70.

“There are too few taxis, we need more as soon as possible to avoid the scenes of endless queues we are witnessing: it was necessary to intervene and in this case too we took on the responsibility of doing so” explained Mayor Roberto Gualtieri, who continued: “We achieved this objective by facing the long and complex procedures required by law, not being able to rely on the new national legislation which would have deprived the city of the resources necessary to guarantee the creation of the services linked to the arrival of the new machines. In a few days we will publish the call for 1000 new licenses which will join the 450 double guides already obtained with the choices of previous months. For the Jubilee we want to have over 9 thousand operational taxis."

“I am very satisfied and I thank all the offices and the category, with which we have had discussions, for having arrived at this result – commented the Capitoline Councilor for Mobility, Eugenio Patané –. After 20 years of waiting, we are putting out a tender for 1000 taxi licenses and will also increase NCC authorisations. We hoped that the Government would give us a hand through the Asset Decree and instead it approved a regulation that took away resources in exchange for a couple of steps less; so it took us a few more weeks but, in the end, we increased the licenses anyway. The tender will be published by the end of the month."