Taxi association boss refutes claims of overcharging

The Transport Authority is warning all public passenger vehicle (PPV) operators to stop overcharging commuters.

The Transport Authority also says that although no fare increase has been granted for PPV operators since last year, they have received many complaints from passengers that they are being overcharged and are receiving notices from operators about fare increases in the Kingston Metropolitan Transport Region (KMTR). However, president of the Transport Operations Development Sustainable Services, Egeton Newman, says that the reports are incorrect.

"There is no issue with fares, especially in the Corporate Area. What has happened is that the hackney carriage operators in the KMTR got a 15 per cent fare increase, as every other transport operator across the island," said Newman. He also said that the $150 or $160 fare being charged by hackney carriages is fair because they were originally chartered taxis but, because of the shortage of transportation, they are now operating a shared ride service.

"A hackney carriage is supposed to carry only one passenger or maybe a family but what they are doing is operating what is called a share ride service. So they carry four passengers in the car. Now, for one passenger, if you take a hackney carriage from Half-Way Tree to Papine, the price should be $600 or maybe $640. However, they carry four passengers in the share ride service and divide the $600 or $640 into four and that makes it $150 per person or, in some cases, $160 per person," said Newman.

Newman also told THE WEEKEND STAR that passengers are misunderstanding the fare increase because the 15 per cent fare increase was added to the 25 per cent fare increase granted to public transporters in 2014.

"When they got the 15 per cent fare increase, they were confused as to what to do because it is 15 per cent on $120, and how the $120 came in is we got a fare increase in 2014. The JUTC [Jamaica Urban Transport Company] was charging $100, and the taxis were charging a $120 but they decided not to take the $20 because they wouldn't make any money because the JUTC is charging $100. So, they added the 15 per cent to the $120," said Newman, who added that the operators rounded the figure off to $150, which he considered fair as the fare per passenger equated to the $600 they would originally charge per person.

He also said that, because of the pandemic, PPV operators have been constantly losing revenue because of the inflation of gas prices and having to spend five per cent of their income on masks and sanitisation. He also says that because COVID-19 has forced operators to carry fewer passengers, their revenue has been reduced by 25 per cent.