Bucharest’s English-language daily paper, Romanian Insider, reports this morning that taxis at the airport and the Gara de Nord railway station have been sorted out, with touch-screen bookings at both places and one firm winning the bid to take passengers at the station. (read more here)
If this means no more threats and extortion from the mafia cabs, who have fleeced visitors for years to the tune of €50, €60, even €80 to get from the airport to the city centre (the official fare should be about RON30 – certainly less than €10), this is wonderful news for visitors and travellers.
We’ll see. Will Meridian, the taxi firm who has won the bid, stick to its published fares, or will there be some unofficial pricing by drivers? Will it work well for six months then drift back to the bad old ways?
If anyone knows more about this, or has a good or bad experience to report, do please leave your comment here.
Is this very good news?
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[September 2014] The system which started so well has broken down a bit. There is a still a maelstrom of good and bad cabs seething around the Gara de Nord, and when I arrived from Brasov on a Tuesday evening the machines that search out an approved cab couldn’t cope and said there were no cabs in the area (nonsense). In the end I picked one up in the street outside after checking the rate on his door (don’t pay more than 1.39 lei per km) and he was surly but honest. Maybe it was a particularly busy day, but it took me far too long to get a cab from the main station. Still WAY better than MafiaCabsInc, however.
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