The International Taxi Eurasian Forum was held in St. Petersburg on August 8 and 9, 2013. During the working sessions, the speakers raised the most pressing issues of the modern taxi industry, discussed the features of legal regulation and the positive aspects of using modern technologies.
Recently, lawmakers have seriously embarked on reforming taxi operations. The problem is that the adopted laws and amendments have caused mixed reactions among the taxi community. Many reviews on the Internet criticized the adopted Federal Law No. 69, popularly called the "taxi law". Partially, the law came into force in the summer of 2012, but it only started working in full force.
Stanislav Vladimirovich Popov, Chairman of the Transport Committee of St. Petersburg, spoke about the results of the “taxi law” and the specifics of the legal regulation of the taxi industry in St. Petersburg at the forum. He noted several important legislative points and cited an impressive number of statistics. So, on the diagram presented by Stanislav Vladimirovich it was shown that the smallest percentage of obtaining official licenses for taxis is in 2012, when Federal Law No. 69 first began its work.
But it was more important to bring comparative data on the advantages and disadvantages of taxi legislation before and after the adoption of the "taxi law". It turned out that earlier there were more advantages than disadvantages. For example, the disadvantages of laws included the lack of the possibility of bringing carriers to administrative responsibility for the lack of an agreement and the lack of authority to establish the color of cars. And if the first drawback can be considered serious, the second is unlikely to be considered significant by anyone. With the adoption of Federal Law No. 69 in 2011, it was possible to move the minuses to the plus column, but the list of shortcomings expanded: the lack of provisions on regulating the activities of dispatch services, the lack of authority to regulate work at organized taxi stops and more. How much it all cost the opportunity to adopt a single color to judge there is no sense.
It is worth saying only that it is more a desire to imitate Europe and the USA, where a taxi can only be yellow. But do not forget - in these countries the practice of color uniformity is already a tradition and has been present for many decades. In the United States, this is more likely due to one of the first official taxi services, which was called Yellow Cab Co. (hence the yellow color). In the states, taxi drivers deliberately go to paint a car in yellow, because it causes the trust of customers and helps to recognize taxis in the city traffic. In Russia, for the time being, there are no such rooted traditions.
The situation with modern legislation in the field of taxi was commented by a representative - partner of the International Eurasian Forum "Taxi":
- Indeed, the law did not appeal to everyone. Even if we look at the statistics, we can conclude that with the entry into force of the law, the number of drivers wishing to obtain a license was reduced. Of course, compared to 2012, this show has increased. But this is more likely due to the growth of the taxi services market in the country. Since MADIV and other similar companies began their activities, there have been more taxi services in both large and small cities. The forum has already made proposals to recognize taxis as public transport. And it is right. While developing technical solutions, MADIV also monitored the overall development of the taxi market. And he developed more than well, approaching the Western type. Artificial stimulation by introducing unnecessary norms, such as color uniformity, will not accelerate, but rather inhibit progress.
So far, the new law has been fully operational for less than six months, and it is too early to make long-term forecasts. But the conclusions about the need for another round of legal reform were voiced at the 2013 Eurasian Forum.