The drivers, who mostly operate from Polonia Airport, urged the municipal administration to withdraw the operational license given to Blue Bird, which is expected to being operating its taxis next week.

“It’s not realistic to let Blue Bird operate in Medan. It will pose financial losses on taxi companies already operating in Medan,” the protesters’ spokesperson, Israel Situmeang, said.

He instead called for a supervisory body to be established that would monitor and improve existing taxi services.

“We know taxi services in Medan are not satisfactory at the moment, but adding more taxis is not the solution,” he said.

Responding to the protest, head of the Medan Transportation Agency Darmando Purba said the license had been issued because there were not enough taxis operating in Medan.

Data at the agency shows there are currently 672 taxis operating in Medan.

Previously, Darmando said, there had been 2,895 taxis in service in the city operated by 13 taxi companies.

However, he said, the licenses for 2,000 of those had been revoked because they had not met standards.

Teguh Wijayanto, a spokesman for Blue Bird Gorup, said the company did not seek to beat out its rivals out of greed but rather aspired to improve the quality of taxis in the city.

“Blue Bird will by no means claims to be better than other taxis in Medan,” Teguh said via telephone.
He said he was not sure if their fleet would begin operating next week.

“We have yet to get more approvals. Maybe [we begin operating] by the end of this year — that depends on the situation,” he said.

Medan would be the seventh city/region that Blue Bird operates in, including Jakarta, Banten, Bali, Lombok, Manado, Semarang and Surabaya.

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