The former president of the Public Transport Association, Muhammad Al-Barbouri, said that 90% of taxi drivers, who number 987 drivers, depend for their livelihood on delivery requests received from the “Uber” application, and through customers whom they have previously known.
Al-Barbouri indicated in his statement to Al-Bilad that the current tariff is useless, and has not changed since 2008 despite the change in lifestyle, the introduction of taxes, and the rise in the value of cars and gasoline.
He said, “Since 2017, the same year in which the fee for driving instructors was amended, the association has been demanding that the cost of delivery for taxis be amended as well, but the situation remains as it is, with the scarcity of drivers’ profitability.”
He pointed out that the current cost of opening the meter is one dinar, and the cost of delivery per kilometer is only 200 fils, which is a low cost that is not commensurate with the current high cost of living, nor the stifling crowding most of the time, which makes the taxi driver’s profitability negligible.
He said, “Drivers who move from fixed places, such as the airport and Bab Al Bahrain, earn very little. The cost of transportation from the airport to the diplomatic area – for example – is only 5 dinars, and the driver is sometimes late in delivering the passenger due to crowding.”
He pointed out that buying cars has become very expensive compared to the same situation 16 years ago, when the delivery cost list for taxi drivers was issued, and this is the same case with regard to maintenance, the value of spare parts, and others.
Al-Barbouri considered that external applications such as “Uber” and others represent a “stifling” factor for taxi drivers due to their failure to take into account the official delivery cost on the one hand, and the size of traffic congestion, which requires the Ministry of Transportation to establish control over them, so that their price is close to the official price.
He pointed out that the association contacted the Ministry of Transportation in this regard, where the latter informed that a company had been assigned to look into the issue of re-pricing the delivery cost, and that there is a possibility of changing the price of the current meters, indicating that the views submitted by the association to amend the delivery cost are at an increase that varies between 30 and 50%.
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