The Portuguese Association of Disabled Car Transporters (APTAD) submitted to the Government a proposal to review the law that regulates the sector, aiming to guarantee “minimum fares” and “fair remuneration for drivers”, the entity revealed today.
The proposal presented by APTAD to the Government proposes measures to ensure fair minimum fares, economic sustainability, daily and weekly availability limits for drivers, minimum occupancy rates per platform, preventing the registration of new vehicles where the platform is below the minimum and a greater structural separation between operators and electronic platforms.
According to the president of APTAD, Ivo Miguel Fernandes, the law that regulates the sector, made in 2018 and never revised since then, “causes very significant imbalances between the platforms, the operators of Individual and Paid Transport of Passengers in Uncharacterized Vehicles using an Electronic Platform (TVDE) and the drivers, who are on the front line and provide the service”.
“There is an imbalance that has caused a complete crush on operators, who feel crushed and end up passing on a large part of the business risk to drivers,” the president of APTAD told Lusa.
Drivers work “far beyond 40 hours a week to earn income, but, most of the time, the income they earn is lower than the national minimum wage, which is completely unacceptable, because it causes a degradation of the sector and a devaluation of labor”, he added.
Ivo Miguel Fernandes highlighted “two fundamental pillars” of the proposed amendment to Law no. 45/2018 (TVDE), which APTAD presented to the State Secretariat for Mobility, and which, if considered by the Government, would allow rebalancing the relationship between platforms and operators, namely the existence of a minimum tariff, preventing platforms from selling the service provided by operators below the cost price.
The second pillar of APTAD’s proposal, added the person responsible, involves “ensuring the balance between supply and demand, through an occupancy rate model that ensures that the vehicles that are at the service of the platforms are, effectively, working”.
“Our proposals are very much in line with the proposals in the Mobility and Transport Authority’s reports. We are confident – we don’t believe in anything else – that the proposal that the Government will present to remodel this legislation will, obviously, be in line with what we defend and with what the Mobility and Transport Authority defends. What we were assured is that, in the coming weeks and before the end of the year, the Government would present this proposal”, concluded the person responsible for APTAD.
The post Minimum Fares and Justice for TVDE Drivers appeared first on Veritas News.
