In an effort to make Prague cabs more respectable, City Hall plans a major image overhaul for during the next few years. By 2009 all taxis that use the city's stands must be yellow, air-conditioned and no more than 8 years old.

"It's the only way to put pressure on the taxi operators to make improvements," says Jiří Bureš, director of City Hall's taxi services department. "To this day we have a registered taxicab that was made in 1966."

Of the 5,312 registered cabs in Prague, 63.5 percent are more than 8 years old, City Hall says. At the moment the only requirement that taxis need to fulfil is to undergo a yearly technical check.

Most taxi operators, however, are complaining bitterly that City Hall is trying to dictate how they should run their business.

A business like any other

"Running a taxi company is a business like any other," says Pavel Pavlát, head of the Prague Taxi Operators Guild. "City officials have no right to interfere. Prague City Hall is the last bastion of socialism in this country."

Miroslav Žežulka, who runs Profitaxi, says the maximum age of the cars should also be more flexible. "It should depend on the car's condition, not on how old it is," he says. "There are 3- or 4-year-old cars out there that belong in the junkyard." The yellow color should be optional as well, he says.

Some taxis driving around this city are already yellow. Jiří Kvasnička, who runs AAA Taxi, has 200 yellow cabs, about a sixth of his fleet, driving the route to and from Prague's Ruzyně Airport. "It proved to be a good choice of color," he says. "The competition between taxi companies at the airport is stiff and yellow make us stand out."

Along with the color change, Kvasnička gave uniforms to his drivers who operate the airport route and plans on signing the drivers up for mandatory language courses and lessons in customer service. The investment is costing him some 5 million Kč ($227,600), but he says he expects it to be worth it.

Still, like other taxi operators, Kvasnička insists that it should be up to the company to decide what image it wants to have. "I don't want anyone telling me my cars need to be yellow," he says. "If I wanted to, I could have painted them with polka dots and the City Hall shouldn't have any say in that."

Of course, there's a reason why Kvasnička doesn't run a fleet of speckled cars. Yellow is the color that people throughout the world associate with taxis. "People are familiar with yellow taxis," says CzechTourism spokeswoman Karin Šeligová, "So I'd say this change can only have a positive effect on the tourism industry here."

But can a simple change in color really boost the credibility of Prague taxis?

Taxi operators say that the reputation of the city's taxi services is already improving.

"I think there is a big difference between taxi services that have a dispatcher center and ones that operate individually," says Žežulka. "Sure there still are little thieves out there that will try and rip off their customers, but the competition is gradually pushing the rogues out."

According to Bureš from City Hall's taxi service department, the number of complaints against taxi drivers has been slowly but steadily dropping during the last few years.

Radek Miňovský from the Czech Retail Inspection office confirms this trend. "There are not any more complaints against taxi services than there are against other businesses here," he says.

Perhaps to placate the disgruntled drivers, City Hall has approved a fare hike from 25 Kč per kilometer to 28 Kč starting next January.

Not nearly enough, say the drivers. "An increase by 3 Kč. That's laughable," says Josef Stuchl, who runs Dimo Taxi.

"Every taxi operator should be able to set his own fare," adds Pavlát. "The fare you set is part of your business strategy, and no one should interfere with that."

Pavlát would like to see the fare somewhere between 35 and 50 Kč per kilometer, depending on the car.

Pavlát argues that taxi services in Prague have a different position than in other European cities. The public transportation here is just too good.