Advantages of taking a taxi over other forms of transport: safeguards and when it pays off

The big advantage of a taxi over other forms of transport is that it takes you door to door, with no changes and at any time, without you having to drive or park. On top of that, in Madrid it is a regulated public service: a municipal licence, an accredited driver, official fares and proper channels for complaints. Compared with the metro or the bus it wins on comfort and hours; compared with your own car, you do not have to find a space or pay for parking; compared with VTC (private-hire vehicles booked through an app), it has public fares and you can hail one in the street. Its main drawback is the price per person on journeys that public transport covers well.

No form of transport is best for everything. What helps is knowing when a taxi is worth it and when it is not, and what to look for so the service delivers what it promises. That is what this article sums up, using Madrid as the example.

There are comfort advantages, but the most solid ones have to do with the rules a taxi follows as a public service:

• Municipal licence and accredited driver. Every taxi operates under a licence from the City Council, and the driver needs a specific municipal permit as well as a driving licence. There is a record of who provides the service and with which vehicle. You can recognise them by their livery: a white car with a red stripe, a visible licence number and a light on the roof.
• Official fares and a verified meter. On an urban journey, the price is not set by the driver or by an app according to demand: it is set by the fares approved by the City Council, which vary by day and time, and applied by an approved meter that is subject to checks.
• No app or sign-up needed. You can hail one in the street when its green light is on, go to a taxi rank or call for one by phone.
• Bus and taxi lanes. In Madrid many bus lanes are also open to taxis, which helps avoid some of the traffic on certain avenues, though not on every stretch.
• Receipt and the right to complain. You can ask for a receipt with the details of the journey, useful for expense claims or for making a complaint. Passengers have recognised rights and official channels; we go through them in taxi passengers' rights.

Both take you door to door, but they do not work the same way. The taxi is a public service regulated by the City Council, with official fares, and it can pick you up in the street and at ranks. VTC vehicles are hired in advance through their platform, which sets the price. The legal and practical differences are explained in the differences between taxis and VTC.

Taking a taxi usually pays off when there are two or more of you, you have luggage, it is late or early, the journey involves changes or the time you save is worth more than the difference in price. Five questions help you decide:

1. How many of you are there? You pay for a taxi per journey, not per passenger: for one person the metro is always cheaper; for three or four, the difference shrinks a lot.
2. What are you carrying? A rucksack changes nothing; a large suitcase, a pushchair or heavy shopping changes everything. If there are five or more of you, or you have lots of luggage, there is the 7-seater taxi so the group does not have to split up.
3. What time are you travelling? Late at night the metro is closed and night buses run infrequently; at rush hour, on the other hand, traffic can make a car journey longer.
4. How many changes do you save? Between outlying neighbourhoods or between towns, a journey that looks short on the map can involve two changes of line. That is where a taxi saves real time.
5. How much is your time worth today? When a delay has a cost (a flight, a medical appointment, an interview), a direct, booked journey works like insurance.

On that last case, we go through the numbers carefully in own car or taxi: a car has fixed costs even when you do not use it, while you only pay for a taxi when you travel.

When people review a taxi, they hardly ever talk about the car. Four things carry weight, and all of them can be checked before you book:

• Being charged what was advertised. It is the number one complaint in any city. Check whether the service gives you a fixed price before you confirm, and be wary of an “it depends” on a journey with a fixed fare.
• Punctuality and confirmation. Knowing that the booking is registered with the right time and address, and having a phone number to call if something changes.
• A pickup with no searching. After a flight, nobody wants to walk round the terminal looking for a car. See whether they ask for your flight number and explain where the meeting point will be, as with our pickup at Barajas Airport.
• Service and vehicle. Help with the luggage, smooth driving, a clean car and the luggage space advertised. This is the hardest thing to check beforehand; what you can do is choose official licensed taxis rather than unmarked vehicles or touts inside the terminal.

When reading reviews, an average score tells you little: look at whether complaints keep coming back to the same point, whether they are recent and whether the company replies with specific details.

One of the usual criticisms of taxis is not knowing how much the ride will cost. On the journey to Barajas that problem disappears with the fixed fare by zone: from inside the M-30 the trip costs €33, to any terminal, and the price for each neighbourhood or town is on our airport fares page. What is more, the amount is per car and not per person, so with several travellers the difference from public transport shrinks a lot. If you are weighing up all the options for getting to the terminal, we compare them in the ways to get to Barajas Airport.

For the airport, punctuality matters more than on any other journey: a booked taxi has a set pickup time and, with a 24-hour service, you do not depend on metro or bus timetables. To choose that time, plan to be at the terminal two hours before European flights and three hours before international ones. And if you live in a town in the Madrid region where public transport to Barajas means combining train, metro or bus with your suitcases, a taxi picks you up at your door and drops you at your terminal with no changes.

You can book online and pay by card, by phone on 911 76 00 81 or, if you prefer to write, order your taxi on WhatsApp with your address, date and time.