The UAE has one of the cheapest gas costs around the world since it is one of the oil powerhouses in the Middle East. Unfortunately, taking a cab in the UAE is almost equivalent to the ones in New York. In a place where cars and gas is cheap, water and taxi fares are one of the highest commodities you can pay for here. However, the RTA has gone up one step better (worse) in the art of consumer mud hole stomping! If there was an award for worst way of making consumers suffer, this is one of the candidates for this award.
So what is it all about, well, to put it simply, short trips or the minimum fare will cost you 10AED. What is a short trip? A short trip is a taxi ride which is just a short distance of travel which is approximately 4.8Km. So if you travel 500m to 3Km, you will be charged 10AED as a flat rate, anything beyond that will incur regular charges. On a hot sunny day in Dubai and staying in Muraqqabat, a trip to Al Ghurair Center, roughly 1.4Km will cost me 10AED, when before it costs me 6AED or less when the meter runs on a flag down basis. And just to give you a clearer picture of this, I am staying in Al Ain and I pay 9AED for a 13Km trip, of course this is not Dubai and the taxi service is sub par compared to RTA. RTA used to charge 1AED per 800 meters, yes 800m not per 1KM, a taxi driver has told this to me and they change this rule to encourage longer travel, more profit and avoiding traffic infested areas. By the way, the increased their flag down from 3AED to 4AED, so my computation of 6AED X 0.8Km gives you at least 4.8Km of getting the taxi to travel round and round till you consume your 10AED.
A lot of people have had difficulty accepting this new rule and to tell you frankly, it’s quite a bad time to implement such strategies in the market. This is the time of recession and to some extent you could understand that this is just business but when you attack the consumer in this manner where it would seem more of profit making, then we see it in another light. It is not our fault that we don’t live in Jumeirah, and yes I know that most of your cab drivers love making rounds to really far places. It isn’t our fault that Karama is congested and Maktoum Bridge as well, either the roads were not big enough or there wasn’t a clamp down on car population control. If it wasn’t a crime to do car pooling (before the police department implemented it) then maybe there would be a slight drop in the number of cars, not to mention a very efficient bus service so that people would use them more. If you made the fares cheaper, then maybe the public would ride these taxis more.
I mean there are so many things that can be done to address these mere reasons for putting up such a tariff. Imagine tourists riding a taxi for 7AED just to get dinner, and then when they pay 50AED, they get 40AED in return, doesn’t create a favorable impression at all, and then you see the taxi driver who has difficulty speaking English, let alone read, point to a newspaper cutting about the fare tariff. One tip, remember, this is YOUT 10AED you are spending, make them earn it. If your trip is 2.5KM, then make them travel the extra distance, take the long cut!
Anyways, take a look at this article from Arabian Business and see Dubai do another first in becoming one of the most over rated and expensive places to live in. I know, its the place where I live in and I have no right to speak out like that but then again, I am not the only one with this complaint.
Dubai taxi fare minimum set at AED10
Friday, 03 April 2009
A taxi ride in Dubai will now cost a minimum of AED10, it emerged on Friday.
The increase comes after drivers complained that short trips wasted their time and hindered their efforts to hit their daily minimum targets.
While the starting fare will remain at AED4, transport chiefs have introduced the AED10 minimum fare with immediate effect, UAE daily Gulf News reported.
A Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) spokesperson told the paper that the final decision was taken on March 31 after consultation with the Dubai Taxi Agency and four other franchise taxi companies in Dubai. The new fare is effective immediately.