The bus does not reach Horta de Lleida, the agricultural space that surrounds the city. To cover urban transport, the City Council offers a taxi service on demand in some areas with the same rates as the urban bus, 120 for a single ticket and free for retired people.
It is being used more and more. Students, retired people or caregivers who go to work frequently resort to the taxi-bus. It goes through the 66 stops distributed between the games and stops at four points in the city: Ricard Viñes square; the train station, the bus station and the Arnau de Vilanova Hospital. In 2022, 5,851 services and 7,826 users were registered, until July of this year there are already 5,094 users.
Marisa Bosch is one of the people who launched the taxi-bus in 2019. She lives in the Butsenit district. “I use it a lot, since I'm older, although there is an application I call by phone and they answer me. For me, Wednesdays from four to eight is key, I have a partner who comes to my house and always uses it, ”she explains. She usually asks for it some afternoons to meet her friends. She gets him free. She's retired.
Antonia Collado, also retired, uses it less. “I don't use it as long as I should. Sometimes I have to cancel it because some days, when I have already requested it, my daughter asks me to take care of my granddaughter and many times I do not think about requesting it with the necessary advance notice”.
Cristina Morón, third deputy mayor and councilor for Security, Mobility and Civic Affairs recalls that the service was created at the end of 2018 and was inaugurated in 2019 by Fèlix Larrosa, shortly before leaving the mayoralty that he has recovered in the municipal elections last May .
"This service was born _says Cristina Morón_ when the need to meet the demand for public transport in the Horta area was detected because the buses could not access the roads and it was necessary to connect residents of La Horta with the city.
Manuel Peregrino is one of the taxi drivers that covers the service. He says that many older people and people who come to care for these older people use it: “There are more women than men, ladies who go to the doctor or go shopping, and caregivers. For example, the ladies who are going to buy take a car at 9 in the morning or another one back at twelve. And the caregivers arrive first thing in the morning and return to Lleida at five in the afternoon”.
Users pay the bus fare and taxi drivers receive from the City Council for each trip between 10, 12 or 14 euros depending on the sections they travel.
The manager of Autobuses de Lleida, Carlos Soldevilla, considers that from what the users transmit, “people are happy with the service, which, unlike the conventional taxi, is not personal since two or three people can coincide on a trip.
The service began in May 2019, that year it cost the City Council 15,000 euros. In 2022 there were 66,000 and so far this year, 45,000.
Cristina Morón assures that the idea of the City Council is to study the costs of the increase in stops, so that the neighbors have it closer to home. "The people of La Horta _concludes_ know about the service because it was an existing demand, they use it and claim more stops and we are going to consider it."
