subject: Do Cabs Have Flat Rate Fares For Downtown To The Suburbs? [print this page] With the current state of the economy, most people are looking to save money wherever they can. At the very least, they want to have a clear picture of their budget and to know in advance what their monthly expenditures are going to be. In many larger cities, where taxi services are ubiquitous, a lot of people have taken to giving up their vehicle and exclusively using taxis and buses for their transportation.
However, they want to ensure that they are not spending just as much money on cab fare as they would have spent on their car payment! For this reason, many taxi services have been increasing their business by instituting flat rates for some of their trips. Since most people who work in the city live in the suburbs, a common question that people in the above mentioned situation might ask is, "Do cabs have flat rate fares for downtown to the suburbs, and vice-versa?"
Many taxi services are now offering flat rate fares from downtown to the suburbs. You might wonder how and why they would do this. After all, they have many fixed rate expenses per mile such as gasoline. Won't they lose money if they don't charge by the mile? Taxi services are very savvy. They would never institute a special that would lose them money. What they have done is to calculate the average fare from a number of popular locations in the downtown area to the most populous suburbs. So while they may be losing a small amount on certain trips, they are making extra money on other trips. In this way, it averages out for them to the same amount that they would be charging if they were still charging these trips per mile.
For this reason, though, you need to be cognizant of whether the trip from your pickup location in downtown to your home in the suburbs is one of the trips where the taxi services are gaining money or losing money. You don't want to be the person who is subsidizing other people's trips! Calculate carefully whether the flat rate is a good deal for you compared to what the cost for a per mile trip would be. If it is only a little extra, it might still be a good deal just for the fact that it gives you the ability to better plan your monthly budget going to and from work or school via the taxi services. Otherwise, however, you may be better off finding a taxi service that will allow you to go on a per mile fare rate.
