The new taxi law contemplates the gradual elimination of urban VTCs in Barcelona.

BarcelonaThe draft of the new taxi law, which the Generalitat will present this Wednesday to the Taxi Council and must be submitted to Parliament next week, provides for the elimination of the thousand or so urban VTCs currently operating in the Barcelona metropolitan area as their licenses expire, and the creation of a new category of VTCs called "high two-hour" and a service duration of at least one hour. The Generalitat estimates that 600 urban licenses will expire with the law's entry into force, although the intention is to make a "smooth transition," and another 300 will be able to continue operating for a while longer, in compliance with court rulings, until they also expire. The new text also includes a data platform that will use geolocation to monitor taxis and VTCs for irregularities.

Currently, there are 10,500 taxi licenses and 990 urban VTC licenses in Barcelona and its metropolitan area. In Catalonia, the number of taxis has risen to 15,000 and the number of VTCs to 4,074, covering intercity trips. With the new law, taxis will continue to be able to offer intercity trips, but VTCs will not be able to cover trips to and from the Barcelona metropolitan area.

One of the new features will be the creation of new categories to better classify and distinguish the activity of traditional VTCs and platform vehicles, which provide services for Uber, Cabify, and Bolt. There is also a section for limousines, which until now did not have a legal framework although they provide such a specific service that they do not conflict with taxis. High-availability vehicles will offer discretionary transport and are known as traditional VTCs. Pre-booking will have to be done two hours in advance and they are designed to serve businesses and ceremonies, among others. The vehicle must also be available for at least one hour for the customer who made the booking, and street solicitation will remain prohibited. As every year, they will have special permits for major events, such as the Mobile World Congress.

As for VTC vehicles that provide urban services or within the metropolitan area, they will not be able to continue this activity, which will be limited only to intercity journeys. For example, a journey from Barcelona to Sabadell can be booked, but not from Barcelona to El Prat Airport, with a 10-minute pre-booking. Sources from the Department of Territory explained that the law stipulates that VTCs act as a complementary service to taxis, which are considered a structural and basic service and also act as a complement to public transport.

Catalan is mandatory.

The new law will also incorporate the mandatory requirement for all taxi drivers to prove a minimum knowledge of Catalan. The Catalan promotion organization Plataforma per la Llengua and the taxi drivers' association Élite Taxi have "succeeded" in ensuring that the future regulations "regulate the sector linguistically in a broad and generalized manner," according to a statement issued Tuesday by Plataforma per la Llengua.

Until now, the law did not incorporate any language requirements beyond what is determined by the consumer code ("users have the right to express themselves in Catalan"), but some city councils have regulated it, as is the case in the Barcelona metropolitan area, where it is specified that drivers must prove both languages ​​with two co2 languages.

The new feature of the text that should be registered this week in the Parliament is that it would extend the language requirement to all drivers retroactively: it would affect all active workers in the sector, who would have a two-year moratorium to be able to prove their knowledge, according to Plataforma per la Llengua. The requirement included in the bill is the accreditation of a level of Catalan equivalent to B1, the third highest (out of a total of six) on the scale of linguistic competences of the Common European Framework of Reference, equivalent to a level of comprehension and elementary expression for everyday situations.

However, Plataforma por la Lengua and Élite Taxi, who have worked together on the proposal with the political parties, warn that they will work becauseincrease the level from B1 to B2, which includes sufficient knowledge of the language to express oneself fluently both orally and in writing. "The Catalan language advocacy organization has been working with Élite Taxi since 2023 to introduce the B2 Catalan certificate as a requirement for obtaining the professional credential to work as a taxi or VTC driver," explains the Platform.

"The incorporation of a language requirement in the sector could represent a historic change in terms of users' language rights, and should inspire other professional sectors to also regulate themselves linguistically," the statement added. This is the second attempt to introduce a new law for the taxi sector, which was close to being introduced in the Catalan Parliament during Pere Aragonès's presidency, but ultimately fell through with the change of government.