For the past few days, an extremely long line of taxis has been waiting its turn in the Can Valero industrial estate. But, they are not waiting for a rush of customers to appear, but rather going through the process of updating their taximetres with the new fares.
According to Gabriel Moragues, president of the Mallorcan Association of Self-Employed Taxi Drivers, which is part of PIMEM, “the queues form from six in the morning until midday.”
The meeting point is Talleres Can Javi, at number 9 Francesc Vallduvi Street. Moragues warns that 160 vehicles are scheduled each day, as “they go in shifts.”
Thus, following the approval in June of the changes to taxi fares, owners of these vehicles now have to reprogram their taximetres. At the end of June, the Balearic Government approved the introduction of a single urban fare across Mallorca. Consequently, once it was approved and published in the Official Bulletin of the Balearic Islands (BOIB), the next step was to update the taximetres. Moragues admits that “it has taken longer than we would have liked.”
With this update, the fare will be €1.20 per kilometre on weekdays, €2.50 for the initial flag fall, and €4.65 for the airport or port surcharge. The aim of this fare unification is to allow taxi drivers from different municipalities to collaborate.