NEW SIGHT SEEING BUS AND CABBIES IN SHOWDOWN

By Humphrey Carter
DOZENS of innocent tourists came under siege in Palma yesterday when a group of angry cabbies swooped on two of the city's new sightseeing buses, surrounding them and pinning them in at the passenger ferry terminal. The sightseeing bus is only a week old, but taxi drivers have been watching its activities and EMT public bus company bosses were due to go down to the docks today to see what has been going on and discuss the situation with taxi drivers. Cabbies are angry over the sightseeing buses using the ferry terminal as one of its three main pick-up points along with the Almudaina Palace and the entrance to the Avenidas, near the petrol station off the Paseo Maritimo. Up until the launch of the sightseeing bus, cabbies have parked in the taxi rank on one side of the ferry terminal and the EMT public bus on the other, but the sightseeing bus is parking up right in front of the terminal and the ticket collector has been leaping off and selling tickets to cruise passengers who have just arrived and would have otherwise caught a taxi. Yesterday, cabbies reacted angrily when two sightseeing buses arrived one behind the other, when they are supposed to be running with a 20 minutes distance between each bus. Despite their being tourists on both of the open-top buses, taxi drivers surrounded the buses with their taxis and started arguing with the ticket collectors and drivers. The head of the company running the buses was called, so too was the EMT boss. For the moment, taxi drivers have accepted that the bus will continue to call at the terminal, but the ticket collector cannot get off and start “touting” for business. In the long run, seeing that the sightseeing bus is going to provoke yet another confrontation between cabbies and the Town Hall, the introduction of “tourist taxis” is going to be studied. The idea of having “tourist taxis” in Palma was actually first proposed two years ago and in September, talks will be held between the Town Hall, taxi drivers and the EMT public bus service to discuss how these will work next summer. The idea is that between ten and 15 percent of the Palma taxi fleet become “tourist taxis” with a driver who speaks various languages and knows the history of Palma well allowed to charge special fares to give one hour or 90 minute tours of the capital.