Taxi

Rome taxis are the worst in Europe

Taxis in Rome are one of the worst in Europe. Tariffs are much higher than in other major cities of the Old World. Roman taxi drivers can be aggressive, break the road regulations and may not know the correct route. Such data was provided by the Eurotest agency, which was completed in cooperation with 18 automobile clubs from 17 EU countries, including the Italian motorists Club Automobile Club d'Italia.

Among the 22 biggest cities in Europe Rome holds the penultimate 21 rank. Only in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, taxi drivers are worse. At the same time, another city in Italy - Milan - showed a fairly good result being the 5th in the ranking. According to the study, the best taxi service is in Barcelona.

The route, where was tested the quality of the Roman taxis, was the distance from the main railway station of the Italian capital - Termini - to the nearby Fiera di Roma international airport located near the Fiumicino Exhibition Centre.

During the journey the driver twice lost the route and asked for 69 Euros instead of displayed on the counter 62.90. And, according to the report, if the taxi driver chose the right route, the trip would cost about 50 Euros.

In total inspectors disguised as British businessmen conducted 10 test rides in the Italian capital taxis. They marked the quality of service on more than 60 options. Each parameter was evaluated on a scale of "very good", "good", "bad" or "very bad". In the end Rome was rated as "poor" as well as such cities as Zurich, Hamburg, Oslo and Salzburg.

In addition to the low skills of the Roman taxi drivers Eurotest also noted the poor quality of the vehicles, which often lacked air conditioning and had a noisy engine.

Among other shortcomings of taxis in Rome, which were marked in the study, is the problem of finding English-speaking taxi driver, a small number of taxis providing credit card services and unavailability of providing travel information to the customers. In addition, in the Roman taxi it is often difficult to find enough space for the luggage.

Ilya Kalachev

Date: 09/10/2011