Abu Dhabi, Feb 12th, 2009 (WAM)–TransAD, the Division of the Department of Transport dealing with taxi in the Abu Dhabi have announced services for aged persons, special needs people and patients with the to use the new taxi service at 50% discount with effect from Sunday 14t Feb 2009.

The offer is made possible by the generous support of the Government of Abu Dhabi. In addition, people on all other welfare categories will receive a 25% discount under the proposed scheme. Those people eligible will be issued a special card which directly discounts the meter fare on each trip.

The announcement comes along with the news that from 15th February, the current standard and premium services will be abolished and replaced with a single “Abu Dhabi Silver Taxi’ service. The service will adopt the familiar yellow coloured roof light and over the coming weeks all the white roof lights will be phased out.

TransAD has also modified the current taxi tariff to eliminate all driver added extra charges such as double tariff for inter-Emirate journeys, AED10 for airport drop-offs and Salik charges. This move will make it impossible for drivers to incorrectly add any charge to the meter.

Between 06:00 and 21:59, the meter for the Abu Dhabi Silver Taxis will start at AED 3 including the first 250 meters and the rate per kilometre will be AED1. For journeys over 50km the rate is increased toAED1.50 for the extra kilometres.

Waiting time over and above an accumulated 5 minutes will be charged at 50 fils per minute. This move will encourage taxi drivers to tackle some difficult traffic conditions inside the capital. Taxis booked by telephone will have AED 5 automatically added to the meter fare. Journeys starting between 22:00 hours and 05:59 hours will be charged at the day rate plus 20%.