This week the Barcelona Urban Police is intensifying its fight against all those who compete unfairly with taxi drivers throughout the metropolitan area. In this way, as could be seen yesterday in the surroundings of the Sants railway station, one of the hottest spots in the city, the municipal police checked whether the rental vehicles with drivers that came and went were working according to to the regulations.
The campaign in question of the Urban Guard started this Monday and will last all week. In a couple of days and a half they carried out 42 inspections that resulted in 27 complaints and a dozen immobilized cars. Each sanction filed is applauded by taxi drivers like May rain. And the immobilization of vehicles and the arrival of the municipal crane unleashes the euphoria of these drivers. Sources from the City Council stressed that it is a common initiative.
"The objective of this specific control device - municipal sources abound - is to control the correct use of vehicles with up to nine seats dedicated to the transport of passengers, whether they are parked or circulating in the city, to control intrusion and behaviors not allowed. The type of behaviors that are penalized are mainly related to the parking and circulation of VTC vehicles, which cannot park or circulate with the intention of attracting customers. These controls are being carried out at train and bus stations, points of tourist interest, shopping areas, main roads...”.
The truth is that the definitive application of the decree law of the Generalitat that since the beginning of the year has severely restricted the activity of rental cars with drivers is somewhat confusing. The vehicles that have provided this service for years through the applications of the large digital platforms, in the case of Bolt, Uber and Cabify, continue to circulate in the city despite not meeting many of the requirements established by this new framework.
The paperwork, the processing of the new permits, is turning out to be much more cumbersome than expected. In addition, the recent appearance of a thousand VTC licenses still with the right to extension misplaced in a drawer of the Department of Territory feeds the confusion. What is clear, however, is that these cars must be hired at least fifteen minutes in advance and that they cannot in any way prowl the streets in order to get customers.
Despite the fact that offenders are being immobilized frequently throughout the city, taxi drivers in the metropolitan area continue to display their weapons and prepare their new protests against the proliferation of pirate drivers at Barcelona airport. In fact, this Monday they plan to carry out "an invasion of the hall of Terminal 1, including a stoppage of the service for the duration of the concentration."
In addition, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday they will mount "a hellish whistle", "a slow march between terminals" and "a second invasion". The union warns that if the Generalitat and Aena do not attend to their demands, their protests will intensify. The taxi drivers demand, among many other things, that they improve the areas dedicated to taxis and their waiting, that the Mossos and airport security redouble their pressure on pirates, that the public address system warn travelers of their presence...
Also, in order to appease the very heated spirits among the taxi drivers and curb their intense criticism of the Generalitat, this week the Minister of the Interior, Joan Ignasi Elena, explained that in the past few years the Mossos have inspected 588 vehicles in the surroundings of the airport, and that as a result of these inspections they denounced 89 drivers. Apparently most of them tried to work illegally with private vehicles. "We are convinced that there can be no labor intrusion," insisted the minister in a statement to ACN.
