The Plenary of the Congress of Deputies has approved a new law that affects the VTC or Transport Vehicles with driver, a sector where there are companies such as Cabify or Uber. The most important point for this sector is that “they establish new types of offenders in the vehicle leasing service with driver, known as VTC “.
With the new regulation, the provision of services outside the territorial scope where they are established and the collection of clients who have not previously contracted the service will be considered very serious infractions. In addition, circulation is prohibited to search for clients or promote the acquisition of customers who have not previously contracted or requested the service. For its part, non-compliance with the schedules and calendars for the provision of the service will be pursued.
The fines set for these offenses range from 3,001 to 6,000 euros. On the other hand, the text determines that the imposition of three sanctions in two years may lead to the revocation of the authorization to provide the service.
The new Law modifies another one from the 1980s: Law 16/1987. This new law on Land Transport Management, already approved in the Senate, determines infractions related to the leasing of vehicles with a driver and seeks to combat late payments in the field of road freight transport, among other issues.
What do companies in the sector think?
After being contacted by Genbeta, Uber has said that they will not make any statements in this regard, while ASEVAL, the Madrid Business Association for Vehicle Rental with and without a driver, has given its opinion and considers that the service that customers can receive with the new limitations may be of poorer quality.
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“The modification of the sanctioning regime of the VTC proposed in the modification of the Law of Ordinance of the Terrestrial Transport is unique in Europe and is a hard blow for a sector which offers work to more than 30,000 people throughout Spain, “they have said from ASEVAL. To comply with the regulations, customers could receive” a service of poorer quality, less sustainable and more expensive, “they say from the Business Association.
Controversy with waiting times
Regarding the poorer quality service, one of the controversial points is that based on the provisions of the regulation, Waiting times will increase as a minimum time is imposed between when the user hires the service through the app and the car is presented at the collection point (although due to proximity it can be done in a few minutes). And, therefore, it is not possible to stop on the street, as taxis have traditionally done, to a rental vehicle with a driver that circulates without passengers (it must be said that today, few communities allow it to do so, the new law it only restricts it in all).
For its part, from the Madrid Professional Taxi Federation (FPTM), they consider that the law is incomplete since “A minimum time for contracting services has not been precisely defined”That must be fulfilled. And for the Federation, the VTC “have gone from coexisting with the taxi, to skipping the law in a systematic way without complying with quotas or regulations regarding its operation.”
The Elite Taxi Federation Spain has explained that the Adelante Andalucia political party, led by Teresa Rodríguez, at the request of Elite Spain presented four amendments to the Law in the Senate to set 30 minutes in the pre-hiring in addition to the return to base and other conditions. Something that the approved reform leaves in the hands of the Autonomous Communities. With this, this Federation considers that the regulations do not specify the information and there will continue to be no real control.
In the text approved and officially published on the Senate website, it can be seen that the information on the times is not specified. “It will be understood pre-hire such as setting a minimum time interval between the hiring or designation of the vehicle and the provision of the service “, explains the legislation.
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The news
This is the new law that brings harsher fines for Uber and Cabify: picking up a client who has not pre-hired will be a very serious offense
was originally published in
Genbeta
by Bárbara Bécares.