Monday, 29th July 2024
The mayors of Palma and Calvià sign the agreement for the joint provision of the taxi service
The agreement will remain in force from 1st August to 30th September and stipulates that vehicles can pick up passengers from the other municipality at the points enabled as taxi ranks
Palma, 29th July 2024. The Mayor of Palma, Jaime Martínez Llabrés, and the Mayor of Calvià, Juan Antonio Amengual, have signed this Monday, in Cort, the collaboration agreement between both councils for the joint provision of the 'picking up taxi users' service.
The event was also attended by the deputy mayor and councillor for Mobility of Palma City Council, Antonio Deudero, and the deputy mayor for Mobility and Transport of Calvià Town Hall, Manuel Mas, as well as representatives of the taxi sector of both municipalities.
The agreement aims to facilitate and improve the taxi service in both municipalities, increasing the number of vehicles available to users and alleviating the lack of supply in situations of high demand.
The agreement, which is planned as a pilot test to be carried out between 1st August and 30th September this year, establishes that taxis in Palma and Calvià have the possibility of accepting users in the other municipality, provided that they use, for this purpose, points enabled as taxi ranks.
Likewise, it is mandatory that these locations do not register at that time the presence of vehicles belonging to the other municipality, unless the number of passengers waiting exceeds the number of taxis available.
On the other hand, the taxi radio stations will limit their work exclusively to the municipal area of the taxi, while, as regards rates, each vehicle will apply the prices in force in its territory.
The agreement stipulates that non-compliance with these provisions by the license holder will be considered a serious infringement.
Once the agreement was signed, the Mayor of Palma has given a very positive evaluation of this initiative, and has indicated that it is “a step forward in the process of improving the quality of mobility in the metropolitan area, which also affects aspects such as sustainability”.
It should be noted, in this regard, that the agreement will prevent taxi drivers in Palma and Calvià from necessarily being forced to make the empty return trip to their municipality of origin.
Martínez Llabrés has also highlighted that, over the last few months, the Palma City Council has held various meetings with local councils in neighbouring areas to shape agreements similar to the text agreed with Calvià.
The agreement's content will be subject to assessment and review by a monitoring committee in order to, as the first councillor of Cort has pointed out, “modify, from a future perspective, those aspects of the agreement that are susceptible to improvement”.
Finally, the Mayor of Palma has thanked the willingness of Calvià Town Hall and the taxi drivers' group to cooperate.
For his part, Juan Antonio Amengual has recalled that the agreement is based "on an express request from the sector", and has stressed that the main beneficiaries will be "the users, who will see an increase in the public transport offer in both municipalities, while the waiting time at the taxi ranks will be reduced".
Amengual has also congratulated the groups that represent the taxi sector in Palma and Calvià, and has highlighted the "great work" carried out by the Mobility departments of both town councils with the aim of achieving the formalisation of the agreement.
