A curious phenomenon is underway in the Swiss city of Zurich: instead of trying to raise their fares, a group representing taxi drivers wants to see them capped.
At the beginning of February, a passenger contacted a local taxi association, complaining about being charged 62 francs for a 3.3 kilometre ride.
Zurich is a notoriously expensive city, but as the customer rightly pointed out, this fare was totally disproportionate to the distance or travel time for such a short trip within the city.
What’s more, the association said it was receiving this kind of feedback regularly.
What is going on?
Zurich taxi fares used to be regulated, but a new legislation that went into effect in 2024, the Taxi and Limousine Act, abolished the previous maximum caps that drivers were allowed to charge.
Since then, many drivers took advantage of the laxer rules, charging exorbitant prices for even the shortest rides.
But faced with increasing criticism, the taxi association is demanding that a maximum fare to combat price gouging be introduced again, pointing out that current practices are driving – no pun intended – more and more customers to use Uber or Bolt instead.
On February 19th, the association had submitted a request to Carmen Walker-Späh, the head of the Department of Economic Affairs, for the introduction of a cantonal maximum fare for taxi rides.
“This measure is urgently needed,” said Rudolf Raemy, president of the Zurich Taxi Association.
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Deliberate overcharging
The situation is all the more dire because the liberalisation of the market resulted in the significant increase in the number of taxi drivers in Zurich, “while the market remains the same size,” according to Raemy.
But instead of lowering their prices, as is usually done when there is oversupply, the increasing competition prompted many drivers to “massively increase their fares, charging exorbitant prices,” he added.
This is especially the case at Zurich’s main train station, where customers often rely on a quick ride.
“The drivers know this perfectly well and deliberately inflate their prices,” Raemy said.
For instance, some taxis are charging a base fare of 15 francs for short trips – just for getting in – while under the old law this amount used to be 8 francs. On top of that, there are distance charges of around 8 francs per kilometre, up from 5 francs previously.
READ MORE: What you need to know about getting a taxi in Zurich
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What fares does the association propose?
In their letter to the cantonal government, the association has called for the establishment of maximum cantonal fares.
As a guideline, they propose “the highest common denominator” – a combination of the canton’s existing recommendations and the standard fares charged by taxi dispatch centres.
This means a base fare of 7 francs per trip, a distance-based fare of 4.40 francs per kilometre, and a time-based fare of 1.30 francs per minute.
When will the new fares be introduced?
Not quite yet.
The Department of Economic Affairs told the media that, despite the taxi association’s claims of price gouging, there is currently “no concrete evidence of such abuse.”
So though “the request is being reviewed,” no action is being planned for the time being.
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How can you be sure you are not overcharged by a taxi driver – in Zurich or elsewhere in Switzerland?
If you are not in a hurry and order your ride ahead of time, look at the tariffs displayed on a company’s website.
They are bound by law to charge these rates.
These are the official rates in largest Swiss cities;
Zurich
Geneva
