How often do you take a taxi? Last week I revised a report on the conditions of taxi services in a western European city. The research and statistics behind it were comprehensive, though some of the conclusions struck me as strange.
Where I live in Belgrade, most Taxis are organized in associations. These provide a call centre for individual taxi drivers who work rather like freelancers, but tied to one association. As with Ubers, you could question whether working for a single ’employer’ makes you a freelancer, but there are many odd things in this industry.
As in many cities, the number of taxis seems limited, and the rates they charge are standardized. If translation agencies did this, they would be called a cartel and hauled before the courts, but for some reason, taxis seem to get away with it. Perhaps it’s because they threaten to block the roads at rush hour, a tactic successfully pioneered by French Farmers.
Here, as in Dublin, taxis are allowed to use the bus lanes. I was told that this was to encourage public transport, which is more environmentally friendly than private motoring. Oh yeah?
While I can see this applies to buses and trams, how is it true of a taxi? Surely, a car with a single occupant uses less fuel than one with two? In stop-start city driving, the driver’s extra 70-odd kilos must amount to a lot of unnecessary pollution. Compared to the private car, the taxi just ensures an extra person taking endless journeys for no socially useful purpose.
Seen in this light, it is just another privilege for the rich. I can’t help noting that Ryanair’s boss O’Leary owns a single registered taxi so he can personally use bus lanes.
Of course, taxis solve the problem of parking, but that is an individual problem, not a social or environmental one. It is a headache for the driver, but once the city has decided on how it arranges parking, it makes little environmental difference who uses it.
The answer of course lies in good collective transport. I think we are all looking forward to that. Someone said that, like nuclear fusion, the Belgrade metro is only a few years away – and always will be.