Yerevan taxi drivers unhappy with new
11.09.2013,
16:53
Yerevan taxi drivers are unhappy with enforcement of a new parking system which they complain has increased their financial burden.
YEREVAN, September 11. / ARKA /. Yerevan taxi drivers are unhappy with enforcement of a new parking system which they complain has increased their financial burden.
The Yerevan municipality has contracted Parking City Service, a private company to collect fees from parking spaces on busy streets in the Armenian capital. The company is currently installing surveillance cameras that will be used for charging drivers 100 drams (25 U.S. cents) per hour. The daily charge is 500 drams (about $ 1.2), the weekly charge is 1000 drams ($ 2.4).
"The introduction of paid parking is a blow to taxi drivers, because now they have to pay for parking," Tigran Hovhanisian, head of an NGO protecting motorists’ interests, told a news conference.
He explained that passengers often ask taxi drivers to wait for them at paid paring lots making drivers pay also for parking. He proposed to increase the free parking time for taxi drivers from current five minutes to 30 minutes.
A taxi driver Levon Markosyan also proposed that notifications about breach of the rule be sent to drivers via SMS messages to their mobile phones.
"As a rule, the notifications are mailed and it takes a few weeks to reach drivers. If drivers are warned immediately after the violation of the rule it will strengthen the vigilance on the roads ,"- he said. -0-
