Taxis | The government is packing Berner’s taxi reform

Government wants to tighten the regulation of the taxi industry. In the future, those applying for a license would face stricter penalties, and the training of applicants would be increased.

In addition, they want to improve recognizability and price clarity under the threat of various sanctions. Many things would also remain unchanged.

The government’s intentions are presented in a memorandum published by the Ministry of Transport and Communications in May, which concerns changes in taxi legislation to correct the sector’s grievances.

Ministry asked in the summer, statements from industry players about the proposed changes presented in the memorandum. During the fall, it is planned to prepare a bill, which the government plans to hand over to the parliament next spring.

Competition in the taxi industry was liberalized in 2018 by the then Minister of Transport and Communications by Anne Berner (central) management, and regulation in the field was greatly relaxed at the time.

STT extracted key change proposals from the ministry’s memorandum and the opinions of industry players on them from the statements.

Transport- and the Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority Traficom on the pages we will tell you which criminal offenses prevent you from working as a taxi driver.

In addition to serious traffic violations, for example sexual, violent and narcotic offenses also become an obstacle for the applicant, if such are found in the criminal record for the past five years or in the fines register for the past three years.

Special expert of the Ministry Guerrilla Kohtala commented to STT that in the future certain same criteria are wanted to apply not only to taxi permit holders but also to traffic permit holders. The latter refers to persons who own a transport company.

In addition, the list of titles is going to be expanded by adding weapons crimes, frauds and payment instrument crimes. The Police Board proposes in the memorandum in his statementthat the addition of financial crimes to the list of crimes that prevent a permit would be clarified. Also the Tax Administration present growing the list.

“From the point of view of combating the gray economy, the further investigation should also take into account crimes against the public finances of Chapter 29 of the Criminal Code, such as tax fraud or gross tax fraud, as crimes that prevent obtaining a driver’s license,” states the statement of the Tax Administration.

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There is no actual requirement to prove language skills.

Before the 2018 reform, the taxi driver had to pass tests showing both professionalism and local knowledge, and at that time the driver was required to undergo 30 hours of basic training.

After the reform, passing a 50-question multiple-choice exam has been enough, but now they want to make it more difficult to get a qualification.

The memorandum proposes to include a mandatory 21-hour training for obtaining a taxi license.

“Bringing education back into the permit process is probably the single most visible thing presented in the change. The show does not want to return to the past,” special expert Kohtala commented.

The memorandum does not even state, for example, that taking a local knowledge test would be added to the permit requirements.

In the memo it is mentioned that many taxi driver exams have been rejected because the applicants’ poor language skills have affected the taking of the exam.

The ministry proposes that in the future, after three failed attempts, a deadline would be set for the applicant, during which he/she cannot repeat the exam. In addition, the memo states that the applicant could use that time to develop his language skills.

The Police Board states in its statement that from time to time the police come across drivers who do not know the language and that the drivers in question are strongly suspected of having cheated in the test. However, the ministry is not demanding an actual requirement to prove language skills.

“Such a claim has not been brought up in the memo,” Kohtala emphasizes.

When the taxi business the competition was released in 2018 under the leadership of the Minister of Transport and Communications Berner, its consequences aroused widespread discussion.

For example, STT reported at the time that the industry had turned into the Wild West and that the reform weakened the position of the consumer. Among other things, the ministry mentions that the goal of the presentation, which is now being prepared, is to increase consumer confidence in taxi traffic.

However, the change is sought through other routes than through pricing. We don’t want to go back to the regulations that limited the number of taxi licenses, and we don’t want to propose limits to the maximum pricing, i.e. the price ceiling.

“Everything presented in the memorandum is somehow connected to the restoration of consumer confidence in the safety of the taxi industry,” Kohtala mentions.

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The proposed changes were still criticized as insufficient.

On Midsummer’s Eve The round of opinions regarding the closed memorandum and the amendment proposals in it collected a total of 84 statement. In them, increasing local knowledge and the requirement for language skills came to the fore. The measures to tighten control were mostly welcomed in the statements.

Industry operators praised the fact that they want to bring the taxi industry back under closer supervision.

“I took the customer to the Tampere train station and wondered how on earth there wasn’t a single car at the station. A customer got on board from Tolpa, who said that all the cars left at the same time when the police came to do inspections. This underlines with a big marker how much supervision is needed,” comments the taxi entrepreneur Juha Halme in his statement.

The proposed changes were still criticized as insufficient.

“The proposal completely lacks the means to weed out operators from the industry who are not suitable for the customer service profession. Fights between drivers and yelling at customers are not part of the taxi service,” stated Rahtarit ry in its statement.

In the critical statements, it was stated that the proposal would limit the freedom of business as it is now. Täsmä Koulutuspalvelut Oy’s statement states that this would happen, for example, if the number of times the taxi driver test was taken was limited.