The number of VTC licenses soars more than 70% in six months
The number of licenses for rental vehicles with driver (VTC) does not stop increasing and, although it does it in a more moderate way, it has shot up in the last six months more than 70%, which is equivalent to more than 4,600 licenses additional, leaving the total bordering 12,500.
In fact, if in May the number of VTC licenses was 7,821 at the state level, at the beginning of November this figure was 12,463, according to the latest official data collected by EFE.
In the case of Madrid, the evolution in the number of VTC licenses is even more significant with a growth that exceeds 75% in the period to register 6.252, more than half of those in the whole country.
With these data, Madrid leads the list of provinces with more VTC licenses, a classification that closes Soria, the only one in Spain in which no license is currently registered.
After the successive increases, the ratio between VTC and taxi licenses is close to one in three in the Community of Madrid, far from the 1/30 ratio established by law.
Despite the growth in the number of VTC licenses, taxi companies have not followed the same trend and since May their increase has been 1.5% to 65,781.
With this, currently the number of taxi licenses in Spain is more than five times higher than that of VTC.
And is that a large part of the current VTC licenses have been obtained judicially taking advantage of the legal vacuum that occurred in Spain with the approval in 2009 of the laws known as "Umbrella Law" and "Omnibus Law" on the free access to service activities and their exercise, which liberalized the transport sector, leaving without effect the ratio of one VTC license for every 30 taxi that existed previously.
Thus, there were companies that denied VTC authorization through administrative channels and appealed to the courts, many of which have been granted these authorizations by judicial decision.
With all this, the number of VTC licenses has continued to increase in recent months, rising by almost a thousand new ones from September to October, a figure that has been progressively reduced.
With the latest official data, Madrid continues to lead at the provincial level in VTC licenses, followed by Barcelona, with 2,036, and Málaga, with 1,169.
Analyzing by autonomous communities, after the uniprovincial of Madrid, Catalonia is the one that has more VTC, 2,171, while Andalusia is in third position with 1,862 licenses.
To regulate this situation, the Council of Ministers validated on September 28 a royal decree-law that will be processed as a bill, which empowers the autonomous communities and municipalities to regulate the activity of VTC vehicles with a transitory regime of four years to adapt the legislation, a period that may be extended to six years in certain cases.
After its validation in the Lower House, the taxi sector has asked the autonomous communities and municipalities to start regulating "immediately" and, as regards the specific case of the City of Madrid, Fedetaxi (the majority association in the sector ) has already advanced that if the session does not implement these measures do not rule out calling strikes or mobilizations.
It should be recalled that the taxi sector seconded stoppages at the end of July and on August 1 in the main capitals to demand that the proportion of one VTC license be respected for every thirty taxi.
