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New bill to regulate Uber will be sent to the Legislative Assembly, said minister |
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 By A.M. Costa Rica
staff
According to Rodolfo Méndez, minister of Transport, he is in the final stage of preparing a new bill that would regulate public transportation, including the services of red taxis and those such as Uber. According to the minister "the project tries to satisfy all the sectors." Licensed taxi drivers could know the contents of the bill before it will be sent to the Legislative Assembly. However, the representatives of Uber will not have access to the document because "it is a service that is outside the law," said Méndez. The minister confirmed that the bill will be sent to the Legislative Assembly for analysis before next Tuesday, where it will be reviewed by the deputies of the Economic Affairs Commission. According to the deputies of that commission, Méndez had requested 20 working days to deliver the document, however, the legislators decided to extend the deadline, but for 10 business days, which expire on Tuesday. With respect to the service given by Uber, in December the National University published a survey on the opinion of the users. According to the survey results Costa Rican prefers to use Uber rather than red taxis. The study was carried out by the Technological Center of Social Research under the supervision of the personnel and research team of the Political Threshold Program of the university The survey was carried out from Aug. 31 to Sept. 10. The results of the survey were: In relation to question of the most used transport service: - Buses are the most used public transport service with 49.5 percent of the respondents saying they used them. - Uber, is the second most used by 24 percent of respondents. - The pirate taxi services, taxi drivers not affiliated with any cooperative and who offer the service without being legally registered, were used by 16 percent. - Red taxis were used by 11.6 percent of respondents. - Train service is used by 1.4 percent of the surveyed population. Specialists speculate that "the latter may be because this service has very limited coverage.” With regard to the factor of satisfaction of transport, the private service Uber, obtained the best numbers. - 97 percent of the respondents indicated that the highest level of satisfaction is Uber. - 72.3 percent are satisfied with the bus service. |
 A.M. Costa Rica wire services photo According to the minister "the project tries to satisfy all the sectors." - The third service with the best satisfaction rating in the service is the train, with 71.8 percent. - Red taxis were rated as satisfactory by 57.1 percent of respondents. - Pirate taxi service obtained the lowest level of satisfaction from its users with 16.2 percent. With regard to the conflict that arose between the formal taxi drivers and the Uber drivers, the 85 percent of the people surveyed said they were aware of this conflict. In addition, most of the respondents, 87.9 percent, prefer to allow the provision of Uber service, regulated by the government. On the question if the Uber platform should continue providing the service without being regulated by the government, only 35.8 percent agreed. Regarding the request made by the drivers of red taxis, to ask the government to eliminate the Uber platform, only 11.6 percent of the respondents were in favor of Uber not operating in the country. Finally, the study showed that the minority of respondents, 13.9 percent, felt that only formal taxi service (red taxis) should be allowed and that other types of private transport be eliminated, including Uber and pirate taxis). Since the Uber platform began operations in the country in 2015, taxi drivers have protested and asked the government to cancel Uber operations in Costa Rica. The complete survey can be reached clicking here. ---- Should the government legalize Uber? We would like to know your thoughts on this story. Send your comments to: news@amcostarica.com |
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