Baku intends to introduce single taxi fare – why passengers are unhappy

Public transport in Baku has not been running on weekends due to quarantine, while the metro hasn’t been running in the city since June. 

The only way to move around the city on those days is to take a taxi. The government has proposed introducing a single taxi fare. The city’s residents have taken to social media to express their dissatisfaction with this plan.

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The Baku Transport Agency (BTA) held a videoconferencing meeting on the development of the taxi industry in Azerbaijan’s capital.

“The BTA has held a conference focused on regulating and shaping up the taxi industry while abiding by the law and creating effective quality control measures. The plan developed for this envisions the creation of a single dispatch center and the use of a fare and quota system”, they say.

This news quickly became one of the most talked about topics on Azerbaijani social media. Many users felt that the government is monopolising a segment of private businesses in the capital with this  decision.

Here are some typical comments:

“The government is thinking something like this, ‘Nothing should be free in this country. We closed the metro and limited public transport. So you’ll have to take taxis at a reasonable price’. And now they’re saying, ‘No, no, you got it all wrong’”. 

“There are quite a few problems in this area. Things have to change. We’ll all see what the goal of these reforms is. But personally I don’t believe that the government will be able to run this system in a progressive and accountable way”.

“The very idea of a single tariff contradicts the principles of a market economy”.