taxi fares in general

S

STEINER

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I understand that there are a lot of taxis looking for business and apparently its tough at the moment, with declining customers and high fuel costs etc I hardly ever use taxis like I used to use them once weekly in the past. I just think that their fares are too high in this recessionary period. if wife and I order a taxi before premium rate time of 8pm here in dublin its 4.10 initial charge 1km, 2.00 booking fee and 1.00 for extra passenger, 7.10 already to pay and the journey just begun.

I just think if the fixed charges were reduced more demand would be stimulated and more customers means more business. just paying per km would be great for customers.

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I totally agree. I got a taxi on sat nite and my OH commented that when we sat in the car there was already over 7 euro on the meter, total fare was 16 euro - so nearly 50% was the charges you mention above. We dont live near a busy main road (or a bus stop) so trying to flag one to go out isnt an option, we have to call one. Its madness and yet another reason to stay in!!
 
The fares are set by the regulator, but these are maximum fares. There is nothing to stop taxis charging less, and many of them do.

I think that once you have 2 or more poeple, taxis represent very good value for money.

The convenience of being brought from door to door is worth a fair bit to me.
 
Taxi drivers regularly drive to where they know the work will be, i.e. to an airport or to a city centre rank. They often have to then queue. So why, if they know they will be guaranteed a fare if they drive to someone's house, do they get an extra 2 Euro for that?

I could understand incentivising it if there was plenty of work everywhere.
 
November 2008, Ireland slowing down and jobs being lost and the regulator puts up the fare?

If I have a long fare I just call one of the 20% off firm, there are lots of them. The meter fare is just the maximum fare

Even if you have a long trip and you are at a rank you can knock on windows and do some haggling, the regulator encourages haggling
I'm talking a big fare now, like €35 for me to the airport on the meter so I'll get a driver to do it for €25
 
I was at the AirCoach stop in Ballinteer a couple of weeks ago. A taxi driver pulled up and offered to bring me to the airport for the same cost as the coach €8 - he said he was going to pick up a fare at the airport, so any money he got for the journey over was good for him. I had pre-booked the AirCoach, so it wasn't an option for me. I don't think they are allowed to do hunt for business in that way, afaik, but I kind-of admired his efforts.
 
They sometimes do that but often it's not just one person for the set fare

If there was a group of you he would have charged you all €8 each
Or tried other stops on the way to get more people

Same price as the coach and still faster I suppose
 
I remember well the days of waiting for hours for a taxi home from Dublin city centre and thank God,our young folk don't have to do this any more.As always there's the good ,bad and indifferent.Heres a good one...

Four of us went to Dublin Airport from a friends house in Blackrock via the Eastlink and port tunnel and we each had a case,the cost was just 40e.

I think that was an excellent price,as she had called the taxi company the night before(we had all parked in her house) and we were collected at the door and brought right up to Terminal two
.I cant complain about a ten euro fare per person.
I have often got a late night taxi home and the driver always waited until I got into the house before he left.Nice touch.
 
A couple of things leave me stumped about the taxi industry. Dublin is wall to wall taxis most days, and especially weekends. How do they even make their costs? There's a taxi rank in the local village with at least 10 taxis during the day, most people are going local I imagine - shops and back, local hospital etc. Again, I wonder how they make any money? They seem to sit their all day with little to do. Yet, I live 5 miles from the airport, and a taxi costs around €22 including a €2 tip so around €44 round trip, and it's still usually cheaper for me to drive to the airport and pay the parking charges. This doesn't make sense.
 
we booked quickPARK car parking near dublin airport for our week away €49. as its 5.30am leaving house for airport we will avoid tollbridge m50 and go via blanchardstown. we tried a few taxi firms and they all quoted €60ish return lucan/dublin airport. nobody would do it for €25 a trip, obviously prefer to stay and chat at a rank.
 
horusd said:
Yet, I live 5 miles from the airport, and a taxi costs around €22 including a €2 tip so around €44 round trip, and it's still usually cheaper for me to drive to the airport and pay the parking charges. This doesn't make sense.
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It's not quite a straight comparison. If you drive and park, you'll add 30-60 minutes to each end of the journey, by the time you park up and get the shuttle bus back to the terminal. If you taxi, you save all that time.

Good to see many taxi companies doing fixed price deals to the airport - €35 from south Dublin seems to be the going rate.
 
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