Update on Local Rules
Update on Local Rules
Belgium
In June 2022, the Brussels government approved a reform aiming at unifying the taxi sector and ensuring all players can operate in good conditions. Unfortunately, despite its harmonization objective, this reform has maintained significant discriminations between ‘traditional taxis’ (‘station taxis’) and PHV drivers (‘street taxis’): (i) while station taxis can access bus lanes, this is prohibited for street taxis, including electric vehicles, (ii) station taxis have reserved parking spots for picking up and dropping off passengers at trains stations, while passengers have to walk for quite a long time to access ‘street taxis’ car. Additionally, the reform has hindered the growth of the sector by introducing a low numerus clausus: while most licenses have already been distributed, there is still more demand (number of passengers) than supply (number of drivers), leading to extended waiting times for passengers or to no car being available.
The Walloon region is currently in the process of drafting a new taxi reform: while we welcome the intent of reforming outdated regulations governing the sector, we regret that detrimental provisions, in contradiction with the Commission’s guidance, are considered, incl. numerus clausus, fixed prices, a strict separation between (traditional) station taxis and street taxis, even when ordered via an app/phone (e.g. different price regimes), significant hurdles to access the professions, restrictive obligations in terms of clothing for drivers depending on their gender.
Bulgaria
There is no PHV category.
Cyprus
PHVs are illegal in the market since there have not been any national regulations in that respect. The Cypriot market is a capped one where only taxis are allowed to provide urban transport services.
France
In France, there is still no reform of the PHV (VTC) drivers’ exam which remains too complicated and too long, leading to a regulatory bottleneck creating a shortage of thousands of drivers compared to the demand which in turn increases the prices. The whole process takes up to a year (and sometimes longer) for a candidate to become a driver.
At the same time, there is increasing discrimination between PHV and taxi as for geographical access. The City of Paris plans to limit the access of PHVs to the center of the city while taxis would still have full access. During the 2024 Summer Olympics taxis will have full access to the Paris inner highway (“périphérique”) and local highways while PHVs won’t have access to the third lane of these roads. After the Olympics taxis will continue to have access in all cases, whereas only PHVs with a passenger in the car will be allowed on these lanes. These are real threats to PHV drivers and operators’ economic sustainability and many are worried about their future.
Germany
The “return-to-garage” rule still exists. However, the revised law gave municipalities the competency to grant additional return hubs for private-hire vehicles. So far, municipalities have unfortunately not been using this new competency and there is no indication that they will do so in the near future. The “return-to-garage” rule makes it more difficult for PHV to operate in suburbs and rural areas. The distances traveled, and thus the distances to the place of businesses, are usually even longer here than in the city. Digital and innovative solutions in the interest of consumers will hardly pay off with the continuation of the return obligation for private hire vehicles. The use of battery-electric vehicles is prevented by the obligation to return to the garage, as the empty runs consume a lot of the limited battery power.
Such a minimum price would be set around the same price as a Taxi, despite Taxis having other benefits such as a lower VAT and being able to wait for- and pick up - passengers anywhere and anytime and despite the “return-to-garage” rule.
The city of Hamburg explicitly limits the number of PHV licenses given out to an absolute minimum because according to their legal interpretation of the Federal Passenger Transport Act, PHVs are not allowed to be operated in a way that would be in competition with Taxis.
In addition, municipalities that have EV purchasing subsidies for the industry such as Berlin, limit these subsidies to Taxis only, while explicitly excluding PHVs.
Greece
Greece has one of the most restrictive regulation in Europe that imposes so many restrictions to PHVs that make it practically impossible to operate, including: a 3-hour minimum trip duration requirement, “return to garage” obligation, and very high minimum prices. The most burdensome, is the requirement for a written agreement for each trip that both private hire operators and intermediaries are required to publish to an electronic register prior to commencement of the trip, rendering the offering of the service unviable.
Hungary
Budapest's local city government sets fixed pricing for taxi services.
Italy
A national electronic register prevents municipalities from issuing new PHV authorizations, which are already scarce in the whole Italian territory. The number of PHV (NCC) licenses is extremely limited making it very difficult for PHV operators to meet the mobility needs of Italian citizens for affordable and practical ride-hailing services.
On top of this the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport has proposed a reform that will hamper even further PHV operations by, inter alia, (i) reintroducing a return-to-garage obligation after each PHV service, (ii) imposing a 1-hour minimum waiting time between PHV services when the latter are not part of the same booking and the driver does not want to return to garage, and (iii) putting at risks drivers' and riders' personal data giving an indiscriminate access to several public administrations and security bodies to all trips occurred in the national territory in the latest 3 years.
All this is happening despite the minimum waiting time and return to garage obligation having been condemned several times by the EU Commission in the past, until the Italian Constitutional Court has finally declared it unconstitutional in 2020.
Luxembourg
In Luxembourg, PHVs are known as VLCs. VLC must be booked in advance with a written contract and for a duration of at least one hour which obviously is not adapted to urban mobility needs.
Malta
The Authority for Transport in Malta amended their national Light Passenger Transport Services and Vehicle Hire Services Regulations. Though the ‘return to the garage’ requirements have been removed from the regulations to implement the Commission’s notice on transport-on-demand, many other negative new regulatory obligations have been put in place which in the end are more harmful. PHV cars for example are not allowed to be parked in the street and PHV license owners (even when individuals) are required to park the cars in a garage which in addition must have a commercial license. Similarly, PHV geographical booking has been restricted as they need to be booked from a certain distance of the airport or taxi ranks.
Poland
As of July 2024, a Polish Driving License will be required for all drivers providing taxi services, in a market that is currently lacking hundreds of thousands of professional drivers.
In Poland, there are two types of licenses - intermediation license which is national, and taxi services license which is issued individually for each commune, which means that in some metropolitan areas, there’s a need for over 40 different licenses with differing application procedures and requirements, most to be obtained in person, additionally requiring repeating all of the procedures above in case there are any changes relating to the vehicle or driver/s.
In addition, there is no unified system for determining license numbers, vehicle license extract numbers, cab driver IDs, and vehicle markings, which would allow the creation of metropolitan or national scale registries containing such data.
Local authorities have the authority to set maximum prices for cab passenger transportation, these rates are set at the discretion of city councils, often without taking into account factors such as inflation, rising costs of doing business, etc. There is also a lack of clear rules as to how to update the set rates depending on changing economic factors.
Romania
Romania was one of the first countries in Europe to establish a special regulatory regime for ride-hailing services. Although the law does not put a cap on the number of authorizations, cars etc., many provisions of the current regulatory framework render the operations of ride- hailing operators difficult and prevent the development of services in line with market demand. Among these, the movement restrictions outside the localities, which impacts both transport operators and passengers who need means of transport; burdensome bureaucracy for transport operators who want to provide their services (permits, certificates, etc.); or restrictions on drivers’ access to work (obligation to conclude certain types of contracts). On top of this the Ministry of Transport published a very restrictive draft law for public consultation which among others: (i) removes the right of usage “comodat” contracts (~90% of the business is on them), (ii) imposes a 5 years car age limit for new supply on the platform and a 10 years limit for existing supply (note that 60% of the car park in Romania is beyond 16 years) (iii) obliges all drivers to obtain authorisation every 5 years costing 3.5x what it costs today and (iv) obliges cars to get licensed only in the municipality where they are registered.
Spain
In Catalonia, PHV fleets need to comply with a Regional Decree that imposes a second urban license through which all vehicles must count on a minimum length of 4,90 meters.
In some regions, such as Catalonia, Balearic Islands or Basque Country, PHVs must be booked in advance (from 15 to 30 minutes).
Regarding the National regulation, the Spanish Government is no longer in charge of regulating PHVs for urban trips. Nevertheless, they approved a new regulation after the CJEU’s ruling against the Catalan framework through which imposes new constraints on the grounds of the “public interest” (environment, emissions, traffic management) on PHV. These are measures that do not apply to taxis, which could be against the principles of CJEU.
