Taxi fares across Portugal will rise by more than 8% on average from today, according to the agreement signed between the Directorate-General for Economic Activities, ANTRAL and the Portuguese Taxi Federation and already approved by the Government.
The tarriff update comes into effect today, June 1st, with metrological verification and the sealing of the taxi meters needing to be carried out by July 31st.
This agreement was signed on the May 13th between the Directorate-General for Economic Activities, ANTRAL – National Association of Road Transport in Light Cars and the Portuguese Taxi Federation (FPT), “after an intense process of negotiation and consultation” with the Mobility and Transport Institute and consumer associations.
Thus,, according to the authority.
The Government underlines that since January 2013 there has been no update of taxi transport rates, but now “the increase in the Consumer Price Index registered between January 2012 and January 2022 has been accommodated, resulting in an overall average increase in tariffs of 8.05%.”
The president of the Portuguese Taxi Federation, Carlos Ramos, considers that the increase in tariffs is insufficient, but it helps to mitigate the losses recorded in the sector in recent years.
“We have in fact negotiated a table for the year 2022 that has, in average terms for the whole sector, an update of 8.05%. Naturally, it is not what we expected because the convention has not been updated for over 10 years, but we also have the notion that we could not go further”, he told Lusa news agency.
Carlos Ramos explained that the intention when negotiating with the Government was always with a view to making an update to mitigate accumulated losses and to ensure that passengers continue to travel in taxis.
“That's what led us to sign this tariff update. We would like to go further but the government has not allowed us to do so. We wanted to take the opportunity to change the tariff structure, but they remain as they are. There is no change in the value of the flag, only in the length, but this is little”, he underlined.
