Milan, the proposal: "Taxi on call also in airports and stations"

Milan, 4 January 2020 - A few more days and the taxi dossier will open in the Region. The appointment is for Thursday 9 January, when the Territorial and Infrastructure Commission will meet at the Pirellone with an agenda dedicated to public cars and decidedly articulated. A Commission to "handle with care": on the table, there are measures that have already proven to be divisive or that are announced as such. The reference is to the increase in licenses desired by the Municipality of Milan. But not only. The majority who sit at the Pirellone want to review the rules of service in airports and railway stations. Hence the list of audits: trade unions and taxi drivers' associations, the companies that manage the Lombard airports (Sea for Linate and Malpensa and Sacbo for Orio al Serio) and the Municipalities of Milan, Bergamo, and Varese. With the order, then.
In the discussion, there will be a change to the regulation of public cars that would allow those arriving at an airport or a Lombard railway station to book a taxi from their smartphone, with the Apps or by calling the numbers of Radio Taxis anywhere in the city or Region. Today, however, those who land at an airport or station must necessarily use the taxis present in the parking spaces belonging to the airports. Why this change? Because, especially at airports, in some time slots the number of taxis would be insufficient to satisfy the volume of requests. A problem that has also been highlighted by the companies that manage airports.

"I wanted to focus on this issue and ask for specific hearings because Lombardy remained perhaps the only region where there is a total ban on the use of booking applications and radio taxis in stations and airports - explains Andrea Monti, councilor Regional League and Vice - President of the Commission. Despite the need to protect everyone's labor rights and to avoid wild competition in this delicate sector, I believe that Milan, which has now become one of the cities with the most tourist presences in Italy, cannot lag behind other realities such as Rome and Naples which also allowed the use of radio taxis and applications, in addition to the normal regulated parking ". In Fiumicino, an ad hoc taxi stand has been created for smartphone reservations. A model that could also be emulated in the airports of Milan and Bergamo. Although there are factors to be remodeled, starting from the fares of the routes on the airport-city route. Today these rides have a fixed price but the taxi driver, as mentioned, departs from the airport parking lot. Could the price remain the same even when booking "remotely" or should the time and kilometers required by the taxi driver to reach the airport from the city be taken at that point? "The recent increases in Malpensa-Milan tariffs have given the sign of how this regional council is sensitive to taxi drivers - says Monti -. There is still no written proposal, we want to open a constructive dialogue with taxi drivers to reach a useful result for everyone before the 2026 Olympics ".

Il Giorno, Milano di Giambattista Anastasio  04/01/2020