The FINANCIAL — The vast majority of cars, almost every other one, are now running as taxis in Tbilisi and more importantly – without any regulations enforced on them.
There are only 43 official taxi service companies in Georgia at the moment whilst last year there were 42. The latter reflects how negligibly the companies are growing.
As taxi service companies claim, they are currently in very unfavourable conditions and can’t outcompete the existing majority of unlicensed taxis which have taken over the market.
The figures attained from the national statistics office of Georgia really demonstrate how adverse the situation is on the market.
As some company managers say, dozens of their cars lie idle in the garage.
As David Takidze, Toyota taxi service manager says, they have 70 cars at Toyota Taxi service although currently 15 taxis are unused due to lack of demand and drivers.
“Any driver of a car in Georgia can put a TAXI sign on their car and start charging citizens for the service, which is remarkable. It is an issue that needs to somehow be addressed immediately as each official taxi company is facing unfair competition as they pay taxes to the Government and offer a higher level of service, more deserving of people’s custom,” explains Takidze.
“In the 1980s the taxi system was more organized with taxi garages found in Tbilisi and the overall amount of such taxis amounting to 3,000-4,000 cars,” he said.
“Nowadays every second car in Tbilisi has a taxi sign and the problem simply must be resolved. 6 years ago there was an even better situation vis-à-vis regulations as at that time 15 GEL (9 USD) had to be paid to get a license to operate as a taxi whereas this has since been abolished and now any person can freely start making money from the practice,” claims Takidze.
The FINANCIAL also contacted Tbilisi City Hall but the response was that there are no plans yet for the implementation of taxi regulations.
Meanwhile taxi companies are not excluding the possibility of collectively taking their voice to the Government and demanding their setting at least minimum regulations for taxi drivers.
Regulations for taxis are extremely important especially when the country is striving to become a tourist hub. As the majority of taxi owners are individuals, the prices are agreed individually hence cases of travellers being charged too much are not infrequent.
Taking Turkey as an example, all taxis in Istanbul are bright yellow in colour and most taxis use meters which charge passengers according to the distance travelled. The case is similar in most countries abroad with the regulations enforced by cities’ governments.
As Chabua Chabukashvili, Omega Taxi owner says, “it will get much easier for them to operate once licenses or other types of regulations are introduced as at the moment the business is on the brink of failing as many other companies are hardly managing to survive.
“The company was established in 2005 and since then we have had 30 cars of high E and S class Mercedes to offer to our clients. Our company mainly focuses on corporate clients and have individual clients as well,” he said.
“5-6 years ago there were licenses given to taxi drivers although this was just a formality as the majority of taxi owners weren’t stopped and checked to see whether they had a taxi license or not,” said Chabukashvili to The FINANCIAL.
“Currently we have 30 cars in our garage and the company mainly serves corporate clients with a 24 hour service including transport to Armenia. We also take safety measures as all the cars are insured in addition to driver and passengers too, which is rare in Georgia,” said Chabukashvili to The FINANCIAL.
Discussion about this post