Call Sign February 2002 - Page 24 - CALL SIGN ASKS EURO CABBIES ABOUT THE €URO

With the Euro now entrenched as the currency for Europe, we decided to ask some of those in the European taxi trade that have written for Call Sign in the past just how they have received this huge change to their working pattern...

CALL SIGN ASKS EURO CABBIES ABOUT THE €URO

First, this from Sergio DiPanfilo who drives a taxi in San Remo, located in northern Italy in the area named Riviera dei Fiori and close to French border...
   "In Summer 2001, our taxis had the tariff shown in both Euro and Lire just to display the Euro symbol. Then last December, taximeters were reprogrammed in order to display the amount in Euro first and then in Lire! Then radio taxi companies in San Remo distributed a Euro Converter, allowing cab drivers to input the fare amount and cash from customer both in Euro and Lire, then displaying any change in both currencies.
After Dec 15th small bags containing Euro coins (equiv £8) were available and most of us bought them to familiarize ourselves with the new coinage. £200 bags with coins and banknotes were also available, but I know of no cab driver that bought them!
   Call Sign had already asked me about my first taxi fare paid in the Euro. On January 1st I disappointingly had none! Same story on Jan 2nd until 8pm, then a fine young lady at the railway station cab stand asked to go to the end of the longest pier in the touristic marina. A five minute trip, just time to talk and discover she was able to speak English, German, French and Afrikaans, with Italian being her next step. The meter displayed both 6.4 € and 12.400 ITL; she paid with a 10.000 Lire banknote and - finally! - a 2 € coin. "Keep the change," she said.
   When I told her about the report I had been asked for by Call Sign regarding my first Euro fare, she told me nicely that her name was Serena and that she owns her own boat - a wonderful black clipper. Start at the top, I always believe...!"
After around 5 days, about 5% of fares were being paid by Euro. Young people and foreigners seemed to be ready, quietly offering and accepting it, but the elderly still preferred to use the Lire in their pocket, waiting to finish them before using the Euro. "Oh no," they say, "please don't talk to me about the Euro, tell me how much is the fare in Lire!"
From a cabbies' point of view, we had few problems, maybe because we are used to managing fare payments in French currency too, living so close to the border. Anyway it seems far less difficult than we thought. Should you Ladies and gentlemen in London

move to the Euro in the future, don't worry; to manage two currencies at the same time is - what do you call it - a doddle...?"

Sergio DiPanfilo
San Remo, Italy

Secondly, we asked Jean-Claude Lanot, the former Délégué Général de la Fédération Nationale des Artisans du Taxi in Paris - the equivelent to Bob Oddy at the LTDA.
"Ooo la la - ze Euro! Since January 1st French taxi drivers like all French people, had to cope with the Euro. After all the campaigns in the media about how easy it was, French taxi drivers had every good reason to fear the change to the new currency! But they must admit to being a little disappointed. The "big bang" was in fact a very little one...
   Despite the fact that in France, banks are less involved than in other countries with the changing process - which is left to shopkeepers - the strain is quite bearable.
   Meters were set to run in Euros in December at the same time as the annual fare increase. The taxi associations have provided clever devices to calculate how much change in Euros you have to give back if you are given francs to pay for a sum in Euros and the other way round...
   Until the 17th of February, drivers will have to carry two purses, one for Francs and one for Euros.
   But the majority think that before that date, most of the Francs will have been exchanged for

Euros as most French people are eager to get rid of the old currency. The real problem, and it is a big one, lies in the fact that not knowing the real value of the new coins, most customers tend to underestimate the tips...!"

Jean-Claude Lanot,
Paris

Finally we asked European transport journalist and taxi specialist, Wim Faber, to have a word with some Dutch cabbies for Call Sign...
"If it would be up to me, I'd like to go on two weeks holiday at the beginning of January," Gerard, taxi driver at Schiphol Amsterdam Airport, told me a few weeks ago, "then I'd be back when everyone's switched over to Euros." But like many taxi drivers (and some radio-circuits) in Holland, he had already put in an order for

Euro-change at his local bank, enough to brave the storm of the first few Euro-days.
   So, armed with Euro-calculators, conversion-tables, pre-programmed calculators, single rate or (luxury!) dual-rate meters to do the calculations between local currency and Euros (accept local, change into Euros), cab drivers in the 12 Euro-countries awaited Euro-2002 with some trepidation. "But nothing happened, everything went smoothly," says Amsterdam cabbie and Checker-fan 'Gonzo'. "Because everyone had thought it would be pandemonium doing all these sums, everyone was extremely patient and helpful. I started off with two wallets, one for guilders and one for Euros, but in three or four days all my customers were paying in Euros. Occasionally I got caught, and had to change into guilders, but that didn't happen often."
   One bonus for Amsterdam cab drivers is that the City has converted the parking meters the wrong way so that for January, one of the smallest Euro-coins, the two cent piece, buys ten minutes parking-time...
   "And it is exactly one of those pieces, the copper-coloured Euro-cents, which I find very difficult to distinguish at night, in the feeble light of my cab", commented Rotterdam taxi driver Jan on the Euro. Unlike his Schiphol-colleague, he had actually left. "I've just come back from holiday in the Canaries, so I really have to concentrate on the mental arithmetic and especially when you have to figure out whether you've been given a good tip..."
   Most meters in Holland were Euro-prepared and switched over to Euros automatically on January 6 (a Sunday). In Belgium and quite a few other Euro-countries, government-officials insisted on checking and sealing the meters after conversion, causing a taxi-tailback. In Brussels, many cabs still drove with conversion charts two weeks into the new Euro-year.
   "But apart from that local problem in Brussels, the switchover went fairly smoothly everywhere else in Belgium", says Kristof Thyssens of the National Taxi Association (GTL). But the enthusiasm to pay in Euros in 'The Heart of Europe' is not as high as it is in Holland. "About 50 to 60% of cab-users pay in Euros."
   "Not only are Belgian wallets too small for the Euro-notes, there's one conversion nobody seems to have thought about", says Brussels cabbie Yves as he drives me home, "and that is to change the bloody receipt books!"

Wim Faber
Brussels

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