The National Taxi Association (Antaxi) has announced that it will carry out a series of mobilizations throughout the country starting in June, with the aim of stopping the proliferation of massive concessions of VTC vehicle licenses by the autonomous communities, mainly to Cabify.
The organization has thus shown its support for the march called by the Professional Taxi Federation of Madrid for the upcoming May 28 in the capital, where the Community of Madrid has granted this VTC company 8,500 new licenses in compliance with a court ruling.
However, taxi drivers believe that these concessions have involved "irregularities", so they will mobilize at train stations, ports, airports, as well as on the main roads of Spanish cities.
"These mobilizations aim to simulate the collapse that the key points for city mobility will suffer if the more than 35,000 VTC authorizations pending for a single platform are granted," Antaxi stated in a press release, referring to the authorizations that Cabify could obtain.
Apart from the "irregularities" that it believes these VTC companies have committed in the authorization application procedures, Antaxi's demands are directed at the administrations, as it considers that they "are turning a blind eye to the imminent collapse of cities and are not proposing alternatives to the massive concession of VTC throughout the country." Competences in this matter lie with the autonomous communities.
Currently, in Spain there are 20,950 VTC authorizations, compared to 62,798 taxi licenses, according to statistics from the Ministry of Transport. However, in Madrid there are 8,873 compared to 15,931, so the granting of these 8,500 new licenses will exceed those of taxis.
"VTC platforms take advantage of the scarce oversight of the concession procedures to obtain thousands of authorizations fraudulently, commercialize them, and make scandalous profits," stated Antaxi's president, Julio Sanz, who warned "naive" individuals investing in VTC "without any guarantee."