Taxis in São Paulo are the most expensive in Brazil
Newspaper O Globo published a report today informing that taxis in São Paulo are the most expensive in Brazil. And the long traffic jams, usual in the city, make the situation even worse; this happens because the taxi fares have three components: a starting fare (called “bandeirada”), that passengers pay just for boarding the taxi; a fare per kilometer; and a different fare, per hour, which starts to add automatically to the meter as soon as the speed falls below 20 km/h (12 mi/h).
Below, comparison of taxi prices in a few Brazilian cities (bandeirada + price per km + price per hour at low speeds):
São Paulo: R$ 3,50 + R$ 2,10 + R$ 28,00
Rio de Janeiro: R$ 4,30 + R$ 1,25 + R$ 15,75
Porto Alegre: R$ 2,76 + R$ 1,37 + R$ 10
Brasília: R$ 3,30 + R$ 1,40 + R$ 18
Recife: R$ 3,00 + R$ R$ 1,40 + R$ 11
Natal: R$ 3,00 + R$ 1,71 + R$ 17,54
On top of that, passengers start to pay a 50% surcharge as soon as the taxi leaves the city of São Paulo and enters a neighbor city, such as Guarulhos and São Bernardo. And, of course, there is a weekend and late night surcharge (called Bandeira 2), of 40%.
The high prices are causing a decrease in the number of passengers. According to the taxi drivers Union, there were about 800,000 passengers a day back in the 1980s, which dropped to about 350,000 nowadays. Many passengers today are employees of corporations (which pay the bills) or attendants of events.