2nd Interactive Session: Tudor Rusu

Dear colleagues, ladies and gentlemen,

The Republic of Moldova is situated in the South-Eastern part of Europe and has a population of 4, 3 million inhabitants and the total territory of 9,5 thousand km². Its main objective - the European integration.

Moldova had already ratified the main conventions related to the transport policy and strictly adheres them. We are actively participating in all the events hosted by the European Community and most of all - by the IRU.

We believe that today's conference hosted by the IRU is an important step towards the solution of those problems the EC countries are facing and for those countries which are not yet EC members.

Taxi operations have received a new development impulse within the frameworks of the market economy. One of these impulses that positively affects the development of the taxi is the concurrence. There are a lot of large, middle-sized taxi companies not only in big cities but also in small towns. Unfortunately those companies have no transparent and fixed rules regulating their services. The city roads were flooded by the self-employed drivers working without any rules and control. Other modes of transport have also increase their activity: coach (minibus) operators and trolleys. In the past those modes of transport complemented each other satisfying the transport needs but now all of them are competing with each other trying to attract the passengers to themselves. The methods they are using are quite different: low tariffs, "door-to-door" transport, stations stay-time decrease, use of more comfortable vehicles etc. In general all these measures are healthy and help to increase the quality of the rendered services and satisfy the need in transport.

The passenger minibus transports take a very specific place of the transport market of the Republic of Moldova, specifically in Chisinau. In Chisinau routes we have over 1800 minibuses that belong to the private owners who are controlled by the route management.

Step by step the trolley fleet was renewed with the new "Skoda", "LiaZ" and "Ikarus" vehicles.

The taxi operators are trying to keep up with this process. Many of the taxi companies purchasing new vehicles - specifically "Skoda-Octavia", "Fiat", "Volga", "Nissan-Almera" and other types.

However, there are still problems hampering the development of the passenger transports, specifically those of taxi. These problems are the following:

• The operational costs for the urban transport is increasing year by year but the tariffs for the passenger transport remains unchanged due to the low solvency of the population.

• The types of the vehicles are quite different and one can encounter on one and the same public parking both full-size Mercedes and a small vehicle - their rate and number do not correspond to the need in their services.

• Low quality of the city roads that negatively affects the vehicles - especially in winter and spring.

• General traffic conditions and traffic signage, road illumination of its lack.

• Insufficient skills of the drivers and service personnel.

• Lack of the unified rules related to the passengers transports in urban areas.

Taxi passengers transport is a unique type of transport services whose main features are quickness, high quality and accessibility. All these mean special responsibilities to all the parts of the transport enterprises engaged in the taxi transports.

The taxi vehicles are used during 10-14 hours per day all week long and have large daily and annual mileage. He number of operations related to the driving increases drastically in comparison to the ordinary car per 1 km driving, including the number of engine starts even on the taxi-parking.

The rate of the number of drives to the number of passengers is the following: 45-45% of the drives - with only 1 passenger, 35-40% - with 3 passengers, 5-10% - with 4 or more passengers. The majority of the taxi drives (70-75%) are carried out with 1-2 passengers. The number drives with 2 - 3 passengers slightly increases during the weekends. Another feature of the taxi operations is permanent relocations from one taxi-parking to another and constant change between the drives with luggage and without it. The average daily number of drives with the luggage is 15-20% of the total number of drives.

The experience we have accumulated on the field of the taxi operations during the last 14 years in Moldova (city of Chisinau) showed some positive tendencies as well as certain problems that do require their solution.

The positive aspect is the full satisfaction of the transport needs of the citizens of Chisinau as well as their rapidness and accessibility. In Chisinau we have more that 10 transport operators having the right to render taxi services. Some of the companies having neither rented cars nor their own, as well as the qualified drivers are engaged only in the dispatching services - that is only a part of the tasks of a taxi operator. This is only due to the incomplete national regulations related to the transport of passengers and luggage in the Republic of Moldova.

Taxi operators are actively collaborating with other transport operators: railway transport, air transport, road transport (coaches). The special taxi-parkings are in the Chisinau airport, railway station and bus stations. The schedules of the taxis are coincide with the trains, plains and interurban coaches schedules. We also take into consideration the seasonal nature of the passengers flow.

However, we still have a lot more problems to resolve. We still need to design the taxi-parking in a proper way and put additional illumination at night time. Another matter to resolve - to identify the umber of taxi vehicles and their types in the city. We believe that all the transport activity within the city should be coordinated by the unique organization which could manage the transport flows and facilitate the "rush-hours" peaks as well as the working conditions of the transport operators.

One of the important matters is to define that total number of taxi vehicles and their types. We believe that we should scientifically approach this matter having already the basic data. We know the average number of drives per 1000 citizens, average number of passengers and some other. Basing on this data it is easy to define the number of the taxi cars required for a city during a year, a week, a day. Basing on these total needs it would be correct to issued the licenses to a specific transport operators with a specific vehicles fleet.

Another matter which is not yet resolved is the rest and work time of the drivers. Most of the taxi companies do not comply with these rules. In connection with this we consider the role of the trade unions to be of vital importance.

However, in spite of all the challenges and problems related to the taxi operations - that market is now developing and the new operators are coming with the corresponding investments.

We believe that this conference will significantly and positively influence the decision related to the improvement of the transport process, liquidation of the barriers for its further dynamic development.

Thanks for you kind attention.