One of the objectives of Free Now is for the administrations to make the holiday system for taxi drivers in the metropolitan area of Barcelona more flexible so that their vehicles can circulate many more hours, so that each one can have several drivers and thus increase the service offer. in the city, especially during the stretches when it is more difficult to find a green light.
We are talking about the main application to order a taxi in Barcelona. Company sources detail that more than 4,000 drivers work with it, some 400,000 passengers use it each year, totaling some fifteen million trips in the city since 2012. Many other taxi drivers, however, believe that the true objective of this platform is to liberalize the sector, starting with the holidays and ending with the rates. What they intend is to monopolize the offer by applying discounts. Free Now charges taxi drivers a commission of 12.5% plus VAT for each ride it facilitates. In other cities it also charges a service charge to passengers, but in Barcelona the Institut Metropolità del Taxi (Imet) does not allow it. The matter is awaiting ruling.
These are turbulent times in the sector. A few days ago, after four years, the Government convened the Taxi Council again, the main representative body of the union, to explain the first steps of a new law on public transport of vehicles with up to nine seats. The current taxi law dates back to 2003. Back then, smartphones still seemed futuristic.
One of the most controversial aspects of the new law still in its infancy is the possibility of considering these apps to call a taxi – Uber and Bolt also have them – as service operators, and not as mere digital platforms, extremes that worry users. responsible for these applications because they would multiply their responsibilities. “It doesn't make sense,” they say in Free Now. What we do is market software. “We don’t determine the service.”
