Raising Fares Is Not the Answer / Control Truckers' Costs

Vice Chairman of the Iran Truckers' Guild Associations Council said, stressing that a fare increase alone cannot solve drivers' problems, that the main demand of truckers is controlling the costs of tires, oil, spare parts, and repairs. The post Raising Fares Is Not the Answer / Control Truckers' Costs first appeared on Safir Arjan.

According to Arjan's ambassador, Seyed Jalal Mousavi answered the question whether the fares are in line with the expenses of truck drivers or not. He stated: One of the main demands of drivers in 2018 was the implementation of the ton-kilometer plan, but this plan was not implemented and remained only on paper. If the ton-kilometer was implemented from the beginning and the same process continued, the fares would be proportional to the costs, although maybe not exactly, but to an acceptable extent. At that time, instead of implementing this plan, some quick measures were taken, including allocating tires with a currency of 4,200 Tomans and allocating oil to drivers for a short period of time.

Referring to the way fares were determined at that time, the vice-president of the Iranian Truckers Associations said: At one point, it was suggested that 30% be added to the fares. This increase created different conditions for the provinces that had higher fares, and it did not differ much in the provinces that had lower fares.

Mousavi explained about the logic of the ton-kilometer plan: suppose a truck moves from Bandar Abbas to Tabriz or Qazvin. Fuel consumption, car depreciation, tires and other costs of that route should be the basis for determining the fare. When the same truck wants to return from its destination to Bandar Abbas again, does the fuel consumption or its depreciation make a difference? There are the same costs.

He continued: even the road conditions were supposed to be taken into account in the calculation of ton-kilometers. For example, if a driver goes to Urmia or Ardabil in winter due to the coldness of the road and the difficulty of work, the fare should be determined according to the conditions of that route. Also, if a driver moves from Urmia to Bandar Abbas or Bushehr, the conditions of the Garmsir route should also be included in the calculation. But none of these things were implemented.

On what basis are fares determined?

This trade union activist said about the current basis for determining fares: Currently, the basis is the same as the previous methods, but there is a big difference between the actual cost and the percentage of fare increase. Just this year, we calculated the costs and the increase in costs was nearly 40%, while the Road Organization reached 26.5% and the Ministry of Roads reached 22%, and finally we agreed on the same 26.5%.

Referring to the delay in the increase of fares, he said: If the fares were to increase every year as much as the increase in costs, a relative proportionality would be created. But in our country, fares did not increase for three to four years. From 2013 to 2017, for almost four years, there was no proper increase in fares anywhere in the country.

The vice president of the Truckers Association added: "After three or four years, the fares did not increase, instead of implementing ton-kilometers, they increased them by 20% in some places and 30% in some places." This method cannot solve the problem.

Drivers do not want fare increase

Mousavi stated that the nominal increase in fares is useless without controlling the costs of truck drivers and emphasized: We drivers do not want fares to increase at all. I am announcing right here in the media and I am even ready to give a notarized commitment that all drivers want the same because the increase in fare is beneficial when our expenses are also controlled.

He said: From September of last year to today, the price of tires has increased by 200 to 220 percent. In such a situation, even if the fare increases by 60%, what is the benefit for the driver? When the driver has to pay a lot of money to repair the engine, increasing the fare alone will not solve the problem. Criticizing the lack of supervision over the cost of truck repairs, Mousavi said: There is not enough supervision in this area and the prices have gone up a lot.

Drivers' expenses have increased

Criticizing the increase in truckers' expenses and the lack of sufficient monitoring of the parts and spare parts market, the vice president of the Truckers' Association said: "One of the current concerns of truckers is the uncontrolled increase in consumption costs, which has also put a lot of pressure on drivers for parts and oil."

He added: We have said many times that the agencies responsible for regulating the market should attend to their duties and let the transportation sector be managed by its specialized agencies.

There is a tire quota on the system, but there is no product to deliver

Mousavi went on to criticize the way tires are distributed to truck drivers and said: the driver enters the system, selects the tire he needs, the order is confirmed and even an invoice is issued, but when he goes to receive the tires, he is told that such tires do not exist or that they have been incorrectly registered in the system.

Stating that in such a situation, the driver is forced to follow up and file a complaint, he said: One of my colleagues went to Tehran's 124 system and filed a complaint. They told him that if there is a product in the system, the seller must deliver it. But this does not happen in practice and the seller says that this tire is not economical for us.

Quota oil has not been distributed for five to six months

Mousavi also said about the oil quota: there was a system for oil distribution and it was determined how much oil each driver would be given. For example, in the past, the user was informed that four gallons of oil should be delivered to a driver. After some time, they said that they will change the system to improve the situation, but in practice the situation worsened. Our oil quota has been cut for about five to six months.

In the end, this union activist said: Our question is, if there is no oil, why is it abundantly found in the open market and oil changers? Why is an oil that, for example, costs 3.4 million tomans per gallon sold for 5.5 million tomans or even 6 million tomans in the open market? On the other hand, when oil becomes expensive, fake oil also increases. The driver may buy cheaper oil due to the price difference and think that he has made a profit, but the same oil may cause serious damage to the truck's engine and bearings after a thousand kilometers.