The number of users of the shared taxi service in the municipality of The Realejos It grew in 2021 by 19% compared to the previous year, a 2020 marked by the coronavirus pandemic and the months of home confinement. This increase allows recover almost 3,000 passengers compared to 2020 and reach the figure of 16,000 users. This amount represents a significant improvement, but it is still far from the figures of years such as 2019 or 2018, when the shared royal taxi moved more than 20,000 people.
The councilor responsible for Transport area at the Los Realejos Town Hall, Alexis Hernandez (PP), reported this Monday of this accumulated increase of 19.3% in the number of people using the shared taxi in the municipality during 2021. Specifically, it went from 13,462 to 16,024 passengers in the year just ended, “with a total of 1,011 travel routes made with the four vehicles with municipal taxi licenses that currently provide this public service.”
Los Realejos Town Hall each year 67,500 euros are allocated to this transport initiative, in agreement with the Cabildo de Tenerife, which together with the 177,645 euros that are allocated to the already consolidated urban bus line 330 they add up to a total of 245,145 euros of annual municipal investment in direct actions for the promotion and promotion of shared and sustainable mobility in the town.
For the mayor of Los Realejos, Manuel Domínguez (PP), it is important “to show that these are initiatives that facilitate collective mobility, but at the same time transport to and from the most dispersed nuclei of the municipality. In the specific case of the shared taxi, the routes are concentrated in the areas of Icod el Alto, Palo Blanco, Las Llanadas and La Ferruja ».
The shared taxi, implanted in The Realejos In 2011, it facilitated the connection of these neighborhoods with the rest of the municipality from Monday to Friday from seven in the morning to eight at night thanks to the work carried out with adapted and licensed municipal collective mobility. In addition, these routes offer connectivity with areas of the municipality that are especially in demand, such as the urban centers of Realejo Alto and San Agustín.
Hernández recalls that «thanks to the agreement with the Cabildo, from the summer of 2021 the possibility of payment with a cash card of Have + in the shared taxi of The Realejos, as well as the use of monthly passes for young people or residents, or discounts for transshipment that previously could not be applied because they had not been integrated into the island’s transport network.
Still 4,000 less than in 2019
The Covid-19 pandemic has slowed the expansion of shared taxi, which in 2019 moved 20,037 passengers, a figure similar to that of 2018. After the downturn of 2020, 2021 indicates the path of recovery, although still 4,000 fewer passengers than in 2019
