Instead of a running a meter? I think there they divide the city up into zones and the rate is based on how many zone you traverse.
Lots of cities do it to/from the airport to any city destination. New Orleans and Boston are two of them. Many cities have heavily regulated taxi rates based on these types of ideas. It isn’t uncommon at all because cabies have gotten a bad reputation for taking really bad routes to maximize fares in some places.
Yeah, but zones are a poor way to stop the overcharging, because cabbies in a zoned city know very well how to clip the corners of one or two extra zones to increase their fares.
I went to school in Champaign IL and the local cab company (at least at that time) had a flat rate anywhere in the downtown area (it was $5).
LA has a flat rate from downtown to LAX and vice-versa, but that’s about it (that I’m aware of).
Huh? Zone 1 to zone 6, flat rate of $32. Doesn’t matter how many other zones you clip on the way.
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Lots of cities do it to/from the airport to any city destination. New Orleans and Boston are two of them.
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Cincinnati is another example, where the airport is across the river in Kentucky and about fifteen miles from downtown.
San Juan – OK, sort of part-time US – in the tourist zones: Old City/Docks, Condado/Miramar, Isla Verde, Airport. Zoned according to which is the beginning & destination zone.
In NYC the only flat rate is like others have already mentioned, to the airport ($45 to JFK). But during the transit strike in December, they instituted a flat rate system for cabs (which were suddenly trying to deal with everyone who would have been on the subways, had they been running). Each new zone was an extra 10 bucks, or something like that. I ended up walking all the way home from work, Manhattan to Brooklyn, (three hour walk) because it became addictive! Every time I got to a new zone I would think, just a few more blocks and I’ll save another ten bucks. Maybe people in those cities get used to it and just get in the damn cab already, but I think I’d lose a lot of weight if I lived in a city that always did it like that.
In our state, the municipalities control taxi licences, but since no island has more than one municipality who controls, regulates and taxes taxis that cross these boundaries? 