OREANDA-NEWS. August 21, 2014. Moscow OFAS Russia organized a meeting of the Expert Council for developing competition in the taxi industry.

The meeting was opened by the Chairman of the Expert Council, the Head of Moscow OFAS Russia, Rachik Petrosyan, who reminded of the positive changes in the market of taxi services that had taken place since the previous meeting of the Expert Council and expressed similar hopes for the event he chaired.

The main theme was discussing possibility of establishing government regulation of the tariffs for taxi services. Experts paid special attention to an acute problem of passenger deception. Participants mentioned some incidents when unscrupulous taxi drivers presented exorbitant bills to passengers, referring to a complicated pricing system. By majority vote (14 vs. 3) participants were against resolving the issue by setting government tariffs and agreed with a proposal to legislatively formalize a simple price structure for taxi services that would be clear and understandable for potential customers. It is important to emphasize that at the same time for passenger convenience taxi will have mandatory taximeters in operation. The most important is that passenger will still be able to choose the level of comfort and prices for their trips.

The Council members that supported the tariff pointed out that it could be allowed only for airports, passenger terminals, specialized taxi stands and “kerb” taxi services. In their opinion, however, regulation should not cover “on-call” taxi service that passengers would be able to take advantage of anytime and anywhere.

Experts also discussed in detail expediency of restricting the number of legal taxi cars in Moscow, that according to the law Moscow is entitled to introduce since 1st January 2015. The overwhelming majority of market participants agreed that such restriction would neither improve the quality of services nor reduce prices for taxi services. Some members of the Expert Council pointed out that if the restriction were to be introduced it would only cover legal taxis.

Nearly all participants stated that the above regulatory measures could be introduced only if similar measures would be undertaken in the Moscow region and only upon sharp reduction of the number of carriers.

The last item on the agenda of the Expert Council was using the lanes, allocated for public transport, by taxi vehicles. Most participants supported the position that such possibility should be given to all vehicles that have a valid license for a particular activity, regardless of the colour of the vehicle body, the colour of its license plate or technical equipment.

Expert opinions and the voting results will be presented to the Moscow Government to be taken into account in their work.

Attendees included: Deputy Head of Moscow Transport Department, Dmitry Pronin; Deputy Chairman of the Interregional Professional Union of Road Transport Workers, Alexei Smirnov; an advisor to FAS Department for Control over Transport and Communications, Alexei Gorlinsky; a representative of “Taxist” Interregional Union of Public Transport Workers, Yaroslav Scherbinin; as well as representatives of the largest taxi companies, operation control centres on the market of taxi services, non-government organizations and business associations.