Phila. taxi surcharge dips less dramatically than gasoline price

While gasoline prices are plummeting, the fuel surcharge on Philadelphia taxi rides is falling less dramatically.

In the rest of Pennsylvania, where cabs are regulated by the state Public Utility Commission, the taxi fuel surcharge was eliminated in 2013.

Elsewhere, such fuel surcharges are being reexamined as well. The Nevada Taxicab Authority last month revoked a surcharge imposed in 2011. Even in Beijing, a 16-cent surcharge is being eliminated this week because of falling oil prices.

The Philadelphia taxi fuel surcharge was imposed in 2012, at $1.25 per trip, to allow cab drivers "to recover the unanticipated high price of gasoline," the local taxi regulator, the Philadelphia Parking Authority, said at the time.

When the PPA approved the surcharge in April 2012, the average price of gas in the Philadelphia metro area was $3.95 a gallon.

Now, the average price of regular gas in the region is $2.32 a gallon.

But though the price of gas has dropped by $1.63 a gallon, the surcharge has fallen by only 60 cents, to $0.65 a trip.

On Feb. 1, the surcharge is scheduled to drop to $0.45 a trip.

PPA executive director Vince Fenerty said the surcharge "is intended to provide the taxi industry with some degree of economic consistency while maintaining fairness to the traveling public."

He said the basic taxi fare has remained unchanged since early 2008, at $2.70 for the first 10th of a mile and 23 cents for each 10th of a mile thereafter.

The surcharge for each month is determined by the price of gas on the third Friday of the preceding month. A chart used by the PPA determines the surcharge, and the surcharge rises or falls about 5 cents for each 10-cent fluctuation in the pump price.

The surcharge would be zero if the pump price of gas were to fall to $1.35 a gallon, the average statewide price in 2003. (Since then, inflation has been 29 percent, so that 2003 gallon would cost $1.74 in today's dollars.)

The PPA price chart also sets the "airport transfer service" charge that limousines and vans levy on passengers traveling to and from Philadelphia International.

That charge, which was $2.75 per passenger in April 2012, has dropped to $1.50 per passenger this month and is scheduled to fall to $1.10 per passenger on Feb. 1.

The fuel surcharge on taxi rides in the rest of Pennsylvania, established by the PUC in 2004, was terminated on June 30, 2013.

PUC spokeswoman Robin Tilley said the statewide surcharge was dropped "because no taxi companies requested the surcharge to be extended for another year. Previously it had been extended each year based on requests from taxi companies."

"While we cannot say for sure, the reason there were no requests could have been because of decreasing fuel charges."