THE Fiji Taxi Association (FTA) has welcomed government’s plan to revert open taxi rank system to municipal stand and base system.
Association general secretary Ashwin Ashish Lal said the open taxi rank (OTR) system was brought in by the previous government without proper consultation.
“This system has never worked,” Mr Lal said.
“They never told us how this system is ‘gonna’ work.
“Before (the) 2022 election, they just said that it was an open base system, how it’s going to run, they didn’t tell us about it.
“So, since then, everybody was going for the free ride.”
He said the association had always opposed the open taxi rank system.
“From the first day when they brought this system, when we had a consultation with LTA, and they explained how they wanted it to work, from that day the Fiji Taxi Association has been objecting it.
“They had said that this system would be like first in, first out basis.
“That idea was brought up from Singapore and we had seen that that system was very hard to run in Fiji.”
Mr Lal said taxi services would be more effective by bringing back the ‘municipal stand and base’ system.
“With open rank system, we could see that all taxis are in town.
“Even private vehicles illegally operating as taxis are increasing day by day.
“To stop this illegal operation, we wanted the base system to be brought back.
“By bringing back the base system, taxis from rural areas that are operating in towns will go back to their respective areas to provide service to the people in their area,” he said.
