Istanbul Municipality increases taxi fare by 25 percent

The Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality has announced a significant price increase in the average taxi, school bus and minibus fares.

The Istanbul municipality’s Transportation Coordination Center (UKOME) this week said that school transport service prices will increase by 13 percent, minibusses by 20 percent and taxis by 25 percent.

“As the transportation community, we were expecting a price hike, an improvement of the tariff for 24 months. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the increase rate we wanted. We are not that happy,” Hurriyetdailynews quoted Istanbul Taxi Drivers Tradesmen’s Association (İTEO) head Eyüp Aksu.

Aksu mentioned that with the new price hike the drop charge rose from 4 Turkish liras to 5 lira and the minimum fare was increased from 10 lira to 13, while the fare for one kilometer was hiked from 2.5 liras to 3.1.

The school bus fares raise the shortest distance fare from 215 liras to 243 and the longest distance fare from 525 liras to 580 as the UKOME introduces a 13 percent price hike.

Minibus and dolmuş (shared taxi/minibus) fares were increased by nearly 25 percent. The minimum taxi fare increases to 13 lira. A kilometer distance fee increased from 2.5 Lira to 3.1 Lira.

“The industry had been waiting for a price hike for the last 26 months. We were very victims, although the new price hike is not very satisfactory, at least we are happy with [the] 20 percent price hike,” Head of Istanbul Chamber of Minibuses Kazım Bilge told media.

The Turkish lira lost almost  50 percent of its value since last August. As the country is oil-dependent, the weak lira kicked up an oil price increase which led ultimately to a transport price raise.

Taxi driver battered by coworkers after racial abuse of Senegalese passenger

The post Istanbul Municipality increases taxi fare by 25 percent appeared first on IPA NEWS.

from IPA NEWS https://ipa.news/2019/08/29/istanbul-municipality-increases-taxi-fare-by-25-percent/