Cancun, Q.R. — Cancun Mayor Ana Paty Peralta says a meeting will be held to discuss a possible fare increase in municipal public transport vehicles. She made the announcement after municipal and state public transport drivers increased their fares illegally.
In response, more than a dozen vehicles were towed for the illegal price hikes. Peralta says prices cannot be increased without the approval of the Council or the Mixed Tariff Commission.
She says the meeting is scheduled for Tuesday between City Hall and the municipal public transport company providers. Both sides will sit down to discuss a possible fare increase on Cancun buses and vans.
The soonest any decision will be made, she reported, is early October. She explained that after the Tuesday meeting, City Hall will analyze the study presented by the concessionaires to determine a final resolution.
“We are going to have a meeting with the municipal concessionaires. We are going to talk and as I told them at the time, there will always be consensus, there will always be dialogue, we just have to be careful with the forms in the sense that nothing illegal could be generated,” she said referring to the required external approvals.
Peralta said the study presented Tuesday will be a detailed technical study submitted by the concessionaires to justify the requested price increase, adding that the City Council already has a quick preliminary analysis of the technical study.
“We also have a very quick analysis. It is not the complete analysis in which we are going to present the different situations,” she commented.
She stressed that although the price of diesel has risen, investments in service improvements have been insufficient.
“For many years there were fair prices without improvements in transport and although the price of diesel has risen, we have not had the corresponding investments either.”
According to Peralta, the operation carried out last week was not aimed at confrontation, but rather at verifying that unauthorized rates were not being applied.
She reiterated that the City Council’s response to the request for a rate increase will be announced in the first week of October, but warned that this response might not be favorable for the concessionaires.
Vicente Noya, legal representative of the company Turicun, said that the average cost of transporting a passenger is 18.50 pesos, while the current rates are 10 pesos around the city and 12 pesos for the Cancun Hotel Zone. According to Noya, these rates are not profitable.
