With the support of all political groups, the Dénia City Council will be able to approve during the next plenary session the motion to improve the public taxi service in the municipality. The document includes a total of seven actions formed after listening to the proposals and needs of the two taxi associations that operate in the city.
The service suffers from a mismatch with respect to the current needs of the clientele and the population increase that Dénia has experienced in recent years and which becomes more evident in times of greater influx of visitors such as in summer, Easter, bridges or weekends .
Currently, the public taxi service "is not being able to respond to the existing demand, a fact that generates a lot of criticism and negative opinions towards professionals and their groups", explains the text of the motion. In addition, other services are not provided due to the dispersion of the spread and "there is a lack of coordination that results in a bad image for a tourist city that promotes quality as a hallmark," it adds.
This situation led the municipal group Gent of Dénia to prepare, in October 2022, a first motion requesting improvements in the service during the tourist season. With the aim of analyzing, specifying and approving a broader and more effective package of measures, the Councilor for Citizen Security, Javier Scotto, proposed to the groups of the Municipal Corporation to collect information from the two groups that operate in Dénia. Information such as the number of licenses, hired personnel, coordination, incidents during the summer, etc.
They were also asked for their proposals for improving the service, "in which they made several demands to the council, such as the calls for CAP (professional training) exams and more public bus transport, which have already been assumed by the council ". Scott remembers.
With all this information, Scotto called the political groups to two work meetings in which they analyzed the information and demands of the collective and agreed on the proposals to be carried out, after consulting the technical staff of the city council on their legal feasibility.
Improvements to the taxi service in Dénia
- Picking up a request from the associations, the Dénia Town Hall undertakes to activate other public transport services as an alternative to lighten the volume of demand for the taxi service in Dénia.
- Likewise, the city council will carry out three annual calls for the exam to obtain the professional taxi training certificate, as requested by the group. The first test is already scheduled for February 20 and two more are scheduled to be held this 2023: May 18 and October 27.
- The third measure adopted will be the creation and call, by the Dénia Town Hall, of 8 new taxi licences, all of them with vehicles adapted to functional diversity.
- To cover customer demand in the periods of greatest influx of population, during Holy Week and the summer (from June 15 to September 15), Dénia will request authorization from the Department of Transport on an annual basis to reinforce the taxi service of the city with units from other towns in the Marina Alta.
- The city taxi associations must draw up an annual calendar for the joint and coordinated provision of the service, which they will notify the town hall.
- They will also be asked to establish in a coordinated manner an annual permanent guard service.
- Finally, the city council will require the taxi associations to digitize the service with the creation of a specific App for the service in Dénia that offers the user the assignment of the vehicle/registration, the waiting time, geolocation of the vehicle, destination and cost of the service and also the possibility of communicating complaints and suggestions.
The service is lousy and expensive. I don't think the taxi drivers are to blame, except when they say it takes 10 minutes and then it's 20. The app is essential. The combination with the bus is essential, the bus has a ridiculous summer schedule, very few dates. It also saturates the taxi. Taxi prices are crazy, from the bus station (to call it a station) to Bassetes, paying 9 euros is crazy for a couple of kilometers.
It was time for the City Council to set some guidelines to make this service worthy of a town like Dénia. The terrible management carried out by all the organizations and taxi drivers in their service was unfortunate, informality, deceit, delays..... Let's hope it changes now..... An efficient management center 24 hours a day, 7 days a week is paramount.
Taxi service in Denia is the worst service anywhere. If you phone the tell you they are coming and never show up. If you get a taxi they are very expensive. Denia needs to have Uber.
Yes, the cost is very important. I was a user only once and never again. I paid more than when I lived in Madrid for a journey of less than 5 minutes. Professional and charming taxi driver, but I paid dearly for it
Wheel chair users need to be able to get a taxi without embarrassment.