Gasoline prices blamed for 20-cents-a-mile cab surcharge

Against a backdrop of gasoline pricing having risen by one-third in the past year, the Nevada Taxicab Authority on Tuesday approved a temporary 20-cents-a-mile surcharge for cab customers.

According to authority statistics, the surcharge would generate an extra 80 cents per trip, or $2.40 per gallon, for the 16 licensed cab owners on the basis of an average trip length of four miles. This comes on top of the standard charge of $2.40 per mile, which is recorded in increments of 1/12th of a mile.

An expiration date for the surcharge was not set.

The authority calculated that the average taxi manages only 12 miles per gallon. At the average trip length, that means a taxi can cover three trips per gallon, with an average price of $3.79 on Wednesday according to the AAA. That comes out to $1.26 per trip, so the surcharge covers two thirds of the total fuel bill and a little less than the 92-cent-a-gallon increase over the past year.

In the past two years, the average cab ride has generated revenue of $13.50.