The riding public won’t see a taxi rate increase this year after the Nevada Taxicab Authority on Tuesday deadlocked on a proposal to raise the rate by 20 cents a mile.
Representatives of two unions representing cab drivers asked the board that oversees 16 cab companies operating in Clark County to raise rates. Cab company owners and the Taxicab Authority staff opposed an increase.
The Industrial Technical Professional Employee Union asked the board to make permanent a temporary 20-cent-a-mile fuel surcharge, while the United Steelworkers union asked for a 20-cent-a-mile increase on the meters of the 3,000 cabs in operation in Southern Nevada.
Taxicab Authority Chairwoman Ileana Drobkin and Joseph Hardy Jr. supported the rate increase while board members Dennis Nolan and Joshua Miller opposed.
Cab customers currently pay $3.30 to hire a cab, $2.60 per mile and $30 an hour for wait times. A pickup at McCarran International Airport adds a $1.80 fee. Charges are assessed as a $3.30 “drop,” and the meter adding 20 cents for every one-thirteenth of a mile traveled. If the car travels less than 8-12 mph, such as in heavy traffic or long traffic lights, the wait times kick in at 25 cents for every 30 seconds that the vehicle is traveling less than that speed.
Under the existing rates, a trip from McCarran International Airport to the MGM Grand would cost about $14 while a trip from the airport to downtown Las Vegas would run about $24.50.
A 20-cent-a-mile increase in fares would have boosted Las Vegas rates to a tie for the highest among metropolitan areas in the United States. Cab riders in Boston pay $2.80 a mile while the rates in Los Angeles are $2.70 a mile.
Taxicab Authority Administrator Charles Harvey said his staff provided the board a rate analysis based per-mile rates, area household income averages and medians, per-capita income and the cost-of-living index. In the staff’s analysis, Las Vegas ranked in a tie for seventh among the nation’s top 22 metropolitan areas in its ability to sustain a price increase.
The analysis also said the local taxi industry is financially healthy compared with Standard & Poor's 500 companies, which average a 7 percent profit margin, and small companies traded on the Nasdaq exchange, which average a 3.1 percent net profit margin. Harvey said local taxi companies have an average profit margin of 9.46 percent.
The county’s largest taxi companies should be able to increase revenue in the months ahead because earlier in September, the authority allowed each company to increase the number of cabs they can use by one on the first day of each month through February. The board also expanded the number of hours special weekend-use cabs can operate, including some Friday and Monday hours.
By February, there could be an additional 96 cabs in operation in Clark County. In addition, Harvey noted, the number of cab trips has been increasing through 2011 which should increase revenue.
Industry officials could reconsider a rate increase early next year of cab companies request one.