MEXICO CITY (process.com.mx).- The head of Government, Martí Batres, assured that digital taxi service applications operate “without concessions, without permits as such and without responsibilities”, in addition to affecting “dozens of thousands” of licensed taxi drivers.
“It is an issue that we have addressed at some other time, the situation in which taxis find themselves, especially due to the phenomenon of privatization of the service, that through the back door there is a taxi system without concessions and that transports passengers without paying responsibilities,” he said during the signing of Agreements for Improvements in the Concessional Taxi Service.
In the Old City Hall Palace, the local leader explained that the decree published on Friday in the Official Gazette of Mexico City (CDMX), seeks to confront the “silent privatization of individual public transportation through technological applications.”
The above, he added, was achieved after leaders of taxi organizations “requested a meeting a few weeks ago, I even know that, with some skepticism, but I received them.”
Although the conflict between transportation applications and taxis has already been addressed, Martí Batres explained, the union and the capital authorities managed to reach an agreement for the benefit of operators and users.
According to Batres Guadarrama, the taxi drivers committed to comply with the corresponding color code, have the card visible, increase their training, join the “My Taxi” application, improve the registry and place information on the SOS Mujeres telephone number *765 in the units to that they can call in case of an emergency.
For its part, the local government will facilitate the corresponding procedures for the unit operators.
Batres Guadarrama pointed out that the agreement guarantees dialogue between the authorities and the members of this union and offered them: “The table remains open for us to achieve new progress.”
Ease of procedures
At the event, the head of the Mobility Secretariat (Semovi), Andrés Lajous Loaeza, said that the benefits and procedures that will be facilitated for taxi drivers are the following:
- Replacement of plates.
- Replacement program.
- “Friendly” platforms for the digitization of procedures and data correction.
- The issuance of the Type B license.
- “My Taxi” application and digitalization
To promote the use of the digital application “My Taxi”, developed by the capital government, the Secretary of Mobility, Andrés Lajous, explained that this program has a panic button, option to share trips in real time, and information from the concessionaires. and operators, and allows users to request transportation services.
Regarding the procedures, he said that the Digital Agency for Public Innovation (ADIP) presented a Procedures Digitization Program so that concessionaire taxi drivers can consult their own digital file.
The official reported that users and operators will be able to know the documents about the vehicle and the driver, as well as the corresponding authority.
He added that with the digitization of the card and the Type B License, they will be able to consult the documents in the capital government application: “They can have it in plastic, they can print it in a valued form and it is the one that has to be visible in the taxi; but, since digitization, in fact, they can print it at any time.”
Replacement and accessibility bonuses
According to Lajous Loaeza, in coordination with Nacional Financiera, the Taxi Replacement program will continue, in which when “a vehicle is scrapped, bonuses are given with the commitment to acquire a vehicle with a credit that the transporters themselves already have access to.”
In the program, 75 thousand pesos are awarded for a highly efficient unit, 135 thousand pesos for a hybrid unit and up to 180 thousand pesos for an electric one.
There is also an accessibility bonus in the event that it is decided to put a swivel seat for people with disabilities in the front seat, which can reach “200 thousand pesos, 155 thousand pesos or 95 thousand pesos.”
Application service sanctions
To guarantee “equity” between taxis and applications, Lajous Loaeza mentioned that sanctions will be reinforced for vehicles that are used in the latter and do not have registration, as well as for those that add taxis to their services.
He stressed: “For this reason, a modification to the Regulations of the Mobility Law is also published to make it clear that application services are a different service that cannot use taxi service.”
The head of Semovi said that now the sanctions also apply to companies, not exclusively to drivers.
On June 3, 2019, around 1,500 units of taxis, vans, minibuses and buses, summoned by the National Taxi Movement (MNT), parked on the plaza of the capital’s Zócalo for more than five hours to denounce the “unfair competition of mobile applications”.
The negotiations put aside the government of the then head of government, Claudia Sheinbaum, and were directed to the federal Ministry of the Interior (Segob).
The protesters’ demand was read on the windows of the units: “Uber out!”, “Apps out!”, “Everything X vote X AMLO.”
