The Essential Services Commission (the Commission) has released its annual report on its monitoring of regional and country taxi fares for 2015-16.

The report can be found on their website here.

The Commission has a role under the Transport (Compliance and Miscellaneous) Act 1983 to monitor and report annually on notified fares for five years from the commencement of the regime. The purpose of the monitoring role is to keep Victorian consumers and the government informed about the economic performance of the industry, as well as identifying potential areas of misuse of market power that warrant further investigation.

This year’s report notes that between June 2014 and June 2016, the majority of regional and country taxi operators made no change to their fares. Following consultation with taxi operators, the Commission determined that the operators who did increase their fares had plausible explanation for doing so.

Therefore, it has been concluded that no further investigation is warranted at this stage but the Commission will continue to closely monitor fares.