The Municipal Executive of Bariloche wants to apply drastic changes to the taxi servicewhich would include a significant expansion in the number of licenses, permission to operate through applications and rate deregulationwith the freedom for borrowers to dispense with the watch and agree on the price with the passenger.
The project entered the Municipal Council a few days ago and has already generated the first reactions, none favorable to the proposal signed by Mayor Walter Cortés. The Bariloche Taxi Owners Association gave him the thumbs down from the outset, although some councilors find it hardly credible that there is no agreement between that entity and the government.
The head of the association that represents license holders, Carlos Difranco assured that he was unaware of the initiative. After hearing some details he said that “What they want to do does not exist anywhere in the world.”
Mayor Walter Cortés He had already announced weeks ago his intention to redefine the taxi service and in the campaign he spoke several times about deregulation and to open the game to other providers and other formats. The idea of the government is remove the character of “public service” and this is stated in article 1 of the draft ordinance. He proposes calling it simply “taxi service.”
But below it states that The traditional taximeter clock visible to the passenger “will be optional”, and that the sealing will cease to be a power reserved to the municipality and will remain in the hands of the Taxi Owners Association, which also will have the function of “establishing the suggested service rates”.
another clause authorizes providers to take passengers not only by telephone calls or radio links but “by mobile transportation applications.
The councilor who chairs the Transportation and Services commission, Roxana Ferreyra (Nos Une Río Negro), said that the new regime in reality would be “enable taxis to function like Uber.”
Ferreyra declared herself “surprised” by the content and finds it hardly credible that the Association was not aware. She recalled that this entity proposed the deregulation of rates some time ago, when they were called by the Council to evaluate a regulation for the applications. “We will have to start studying it, I don’t know if something like this was implemented anywhere”said the councilor.
The motivations for the changes
In the foundations of the project, Cortés points out that for Bariloche it is a problem “the marked seasonality, which causes a significant increase in demand for the passenger transfer service in high season, or on rainy days, causing an insufficient supply.”
He said that from the Executive They are already ready to grant 100 new taxi licenses (currently there are 283) and in a complementary way they consider “an economic incentive” for providers to spend “most of the day making trips.” The recipe proposed by the government is to ignore the tariff. “In an activity that has many demanders (passengers) and many suppliers (taxi drivers and taxi drivers), the best regulator is free competition,” the mayor ruled.
Other reviews
The representative of the Taxi Workers union Luis Barrales also expressed his rejection to deregulation and emphasized the harm to workers that would result from releasing the rate. He said that today, due to national regulations, their salary is tied to 30% of the collection and that relationship would be destroyed if the price of the trip is freely agreed upon.
He also maintained that the municipality cannot modify the taxi service to that point because “It would be against the national traffic law.”. He pointed out that the new format they want to impose “would have nothing to do with a taxi, “It would be putting more trucks, and there are already 700 throughout the city.”
He also opposed massively expanding the amount of leave because “Today there is little work” and the 50 taxi owners added last year “bought new cars and can no longer pay the fees, let alone live on that income.”
Barrales pointed out as an extra piece of information that Mayor Cortés is from a union background and “if he does not take the workers into account, it is a bad start.”
Councilor Ferreyra agreed that Cortés’ idea “collides with national regulations.” She said that today “city transportation in general is in decline” and the most urgent thing is to regulate the work of Uber and other applications.
Difranco, of the Taxi Association, said that “before presenting something like that they should have sat down to talk”. He assured that they had contacts with the mayor but “The subject was never talked about.”
He pointed out that would like to know “the real motivation” for the proposed changes. According to Difranco, to resolve the supply shortages indicated by the mayor The Association proposed some time ago the granting of “temporary” taxi licenses”, which would be activated only when the city is full of tourists. They were not listened to.
“To come out with such a resounding change they must have spoken with people who know, the truth is that it leaves me cold,” the leader noted. It would not do the municipality any good to be left without a public service. The free price would open a dispute that goes nowhere. Can you imagine a person ordering a taxi in Cathedral at 11 at night, what would the rate be? Where can that end?”
