Taking a taxi in Morocco: meter, soliciting, large and small taxis…

Moroccan taxis don’t have a good reputation… somewhere Marrakchi taxis are on the same level as Mexican taxis (which I don’t know).

Even if some taxis have tried to rip me off, even if others have been beyond unpleasant, these bad drivers remain a minority.

And while many of them drive nervously, this is fairly common among Moroccan drivers. In short, my overall experience with them has been good. And I think the value for money is reasonable, at least in Casa.

For the price of a journey that takes you through half of Casablanca, you’ve barely got started in Paris (not to mention the meter when the taxi is waiting for you).

But the way they work is rather confusing, so here’s a guide to Moroccan taxis.

Small and large taxis

First of all, there is a distinction to be made between small taxis, which can only make journeys in town and can be identified by their colour, which is different in each town (red in Casablanca and Agadir, blue in Rabat or Asilah, turquoise blue in Tangier, yellow ochre in Marrakesh, etc.) and the “Petit Taxi / (taxi sahir)” plate on the roof, and large taxis, which are not allowed to make journeys in town, but only on the road. The Mercedès creamy-white model is soon to come to an end: the new large taxis are white, with a band of alternating small green squares. And the old cars have the same stripe, with coloured tape.

So, depending on your destination, you’ll either take a small taxi or a large one. In Casablanca, the airport is far outside the city, so small taxis are not allowed to go there. In Marrakesh, on the other hand, the airport is so close that you can take a small taxi.

The other difference is that small taxis are metered. Big taxis, on the other hand, have fixed prices for the different distances they can cover – fixed prices based on mileage, of course. Be warned, these flat rates are negotiable! Ask around.

Enter your address

Moroccan taxis often work by triangulation: a monument, a district, a main thoroughfare, a crossroads, exactly the right little street. Getting around efficiently therefore requires a good knowledge of the city, so that you know “how” to tell the taxi where you want to go. If you are going to a place you don’t know, ask the person you are going to see which landmark to use.

Moroccan taxis don’t have GPS. Nor do they have to pass a test to prove that they know every street in the city (and then they change their name so often…), only the important places. So be well prepared.

You can also stop a taxi and point it in the general direction, then, once you’ve got in, tell it where you’re going, with all the necessary explanations. If you are the first passenger, this will pose no problem. However, if there is another passenger, this should not divert the taxi from its route.

Paying for your taxi

Metered prices: how do they work?

The price of a taxi includes a pick-up charge and a price per kilometre (or per minute, for waiting time). Bulky parcels are also charged. The night fare (after 9pm or 10pm depending on the season) is doubled, and this increase also applies to the minimum pick-up.

When several people get into a taxi, the driver will start a new meter for each new passenger. In the top left-hand corner of the meter, there is a number that identifies “your meter”. So each passenger pays exactly what they owe. It’s the same thing if you get on together but get off separately: you will have to pay two pick-ups (in practice, the meter will continue to run, and the taxi will ask the passenger who gets off second for the full amount).

Finding the meter

Usually, the meter is located at the front, at the very bottom, below the radio. For the past year, there have been taxis where the meter is displayed in the rear-view mirror. Expensive (an investment of around 4,000 dirhams), but very practical for the passenger, who can easily see the fare from any seat!

Moroccan taxi fares

(Prices are the same in all major cities).

Meter or not meter?

First of all, it depends on the town: for example, in El Jadida, journeys in the town centre are charged at a flat rate, and no taxi charges a meter. This is the case in many small towns. In larger towns, however, the meter is compulsory and the fare must be displayed on the windscreen.

Let’s be honest: a taxi in Morocco doesn’t earn bezaf, because the basic fare is around 7 to 8 dirhams. And if you start saying “yes, but the cost of living is lower”, don’t forget that petrol is imported, and that it’s only recently that dedicated cars have started to be produced in Morocco. Before that, the little Peugeot or Fiat for taxis and the indestructible Mercedes for the big taxis were imported…

Because taxis don’t cost much, many tourists have agreed to pay exorbitant prices, or have spontaneously given huge tips. In tourist towns such as Marrakesh, or in areas popular with foreigners, such as Casa-Voyageurs station, many taxis try to take advantage of this: they refuse to put the meter on and offer prices in euros (10 dirhams becomes 10 euros). Always refuse: the meter is compulsory.

Topping up

Moroccan taxis can only be paid for in cash (except those that use a central service such as Careem or Heetch). Make sure you have enough change, or at least a 20 dirham note. Over 50 dirhams, the taxi will often have to fetch the change from a shop – and all the other passengers will look at you sideways during this unfair wait.

Often, when the driver runs out of change, he turns to his other customers and asks them if they have the dirhams they need. Whatever the customer gives at this point will, of course, be deducted from the final price.

Above all, you have to pay in dirhams. Although taxis accept euros in tourist towns and airports, the exchange rate is very unfavourable!

Chi bakchich? (A tip?)

For short journeys where the meter is below the minimum fare (7.50 dirhams in Casablanca), many Casablanca taxis automatically give themselves a small baksheesh of 50 centimes, if you don’t make the exact top-up, and give you change on the basis of 8 dirhams.

As far as I’m concerned, it all depends on the taxi’s attitude: if he’s been decent, I leave him his fifty centimes, often even rounding up to 10 dirhams. On the other hand, if he’s been a pain, I hold out my hand to receive my full change. And if the taxi gives me the exact change, I always round up. (During Ramadan, you have to be a good Muslim, and therefore particularly honest: all taxis give exact change).

When the fare is higher than the minimum, depending on the driver, I’ll leave a tip of between one and three dirhams, or five to ten, depending on the fare, if I’ve put a lot of bulky parcels in his car, preventing him from taking another passenger.

You should know that many ‘not very rich’ Moroccans use taxis to go to work, because of the catastrophic state of the buses. They can’t afford to leave a tip.

Chi bon – The receipt

Asking a taxi driver for a bill is a reflex that is quickly lost in Morocco, “a country of informality”. What’s more, talking to a purely Arabic-speaking taxi driver can be difficult. In Europe, I used to always ask for a receipt, just to have the number of the taxi if I forgot something inside.

Most people don’t know this, but Moroccan taxis have to give you a voucher if you ask for one. However, you have to give them the voucher to fill in, which comes from a booklet that you collect yourself from the Wilaya or the commune. Nobody does…

(And for business accounting purposes, the small sums involved in taxi fares can very easily be spent via deposit slips).

Sharing a taxi: “marauding” or “soliciting”

Marauding is a technical term meaning that a taxi is allowed to pick up a customer in the street, without being parked at a taxi rank. In Morocco, marauding is theoretically prohibited, but everyone does it. On a given journey, the taxi will gradually fill up its vehicle. At first it feels very strange, but the system is well established. I think it’s great, it makes it easier to find a taxi quickly.

The big taxi, on the other hand, will wait until it is full before leaving its stand (unless you decide to pay for several seats to travel more comfortably).

Maximum number of passengers

Normally, small taxis are not allowed to take more than three passengers (one in the front and two in the back). In small towns, they will sometimes take a group of four.

For large taxis, it depends on the vehicle, between five and seven people.

Order of priority

The choice of route depends on when the second person gets into the taxi. If the second person goes to an address close to the one requested by the first, but which requires a slight diversions, the first person must give permission. In practice, this works quite well. On the other hand, if your taxi starts to explain that it is going to make a diversion when you get in, as you don’t know the city very well, you run the risk of being taken for a ride. In that case, I advise you to get out.

Men and women

Many taxis feel that they have no business forcing a woman to be in the vicinity of an unknown man. If you are a woman and you sit in the back, they will only take female passengers. But this is not a general rule.

Position yourself to find your taxi

Because of marauding, it is often difficult to find an empty taxi ready to go anywhere. What’s more, taxi ranks are virtually unused for small taxis (but compulsory for large taxis). So it’s essential to be on the “right side” of the street to hail taxis heading in your direction.

The easiest way to do this is to check with your phone’s GPS. I use HereWeGo, which I prefer to Waze as a pedestrian; both are very effective in Morocco. If you don’t have a GPS or don’t want to eat into your data plan, especially when roaming, don’t hesitate to ask passers-by, or even taxis that refuse to take you. Sometimes, even changing your position at a crossroads changes everything!

Communicating with the taxi

To avoid taxis stopping for nothing, you can use hand signals to stop your taxi: you can indicate the general direction of your journey, or the number of people who are going to take the taxi. This is important if someone is waiting with you but isn’t going to take the taxi: a taxi with just one empty seat will not stop if it thinks there are two of you.

If the taxi doesn’t stop, it has probably waved to you from behind its windscreen to let you know that it is full. Or that it has finished its service and is going to its control point.

Getting passed

In Morocco, queuing is a scramble. For taxis too, people often try to get two metres in front of you so that they can pass you, even though you’ve been waiting for quite a while.

Option 1 : you go back up half a metre in your turn, casting a dark and angry glance. Not very effective.

Option 2 : you wave at the taxi from a distance, and if it doesn’t stop right in front of you, you move over and stand out in the street. Drivers give preference to foreign customers (tips, etc).

Option 3 : you move away from a pedestrian crossing, in most cases you’ll get your taxi just as quickly!

Luggage and parcels

In general, small taxis don’t take luggage in the boot: they have to get out to open it, and every time they do, the boot is partially occupied by all kinds of stuff. But they do have a luggage rack on the roof, with straps. I’ve even seen furniture transported this way!

If you really don’t want to put your parcel or bags on the roof and take them with you, you’ll probably have to keep them on your lap: the taxi won’t lose a customer because of your bulky items!

Larger taxis take luggage in the boot.

Scams and other nasty things

The meter scam

Even if the meter is running when you get in, taxis have different ways of charging:

• during the day, it applies the night fare. Sometimes hard to spot when you’re getting on, it’s easy to see when the fare increases: if it goes up by 20 centimes, you’re on the day fare. At 30 centimes, it’s the night fare. All you have to do is say “khoya, tarif de jour âafak” (my brother, please put on the day fare) and the driver will restart his meter. Normally, as he’s ashamed, he restarts at zero and loses money. If the driver raises the meter beyond the 2 dirham charge, check that he does not raise it back to the same level as before: at most two-thirds of the price that was displayed. (For mathematicians, 1/1.50 is 0.66)
• it does not return to your meter when the previous passenger has got off. He’s not obliged to do so, but it may enable him to conceal a night fare. In the worst case, on arrival, he will ask you for the fare that has continued to run. When a passenger gets off, I always ask ‘innocently’ if it’s really my meter that’s being displayed.

The journey that takes you around

A classic feature of taxis the world over. Taxis can have good reasons for “wandering” from a standard route: traffic jams, roadworks, recently introduced one-way streets. But there can also be bad reasons.

The solution: monitor the route on a GPS app like Waze or Herewego, which will give you the different possible routes, taking into account any one-way streets.

I’ve often had people try to tell me that they had to make a long detour because of a new one-way in Casablanca. It’s true that traffic was radically changed a few months ago to take account of the tram. But when a driver gives me a ‘creative’ trip on a route I use several times a week, I hasten to remind him that the one-way system was already in place the week before.

One of the great advantages of sharing a taxi is that it protects you from this: the other Moroccan passengers know their city well and won’t be taken advantage of.

The rotten car

Between not having a taxi and getting into a crappy car, I choose the latter. It’ll take me ten minutes, a quarter of an hour at the most, and it goes as fast as a new taxi.

But it’s true, Moroccan taxis, in Casablanca as elsewhere, are worn out to the bone. Being a taxi is very expensive, so you maximise your return by avoiding additional costs.

What’s more, over the last few years, the government has launched a plan to improve taxis, almost totally funding replacement vehicles. What’s more, these are now produced in Morocco. So there are more and more beautiful, comfortable taxis.

The troublesome driver

Again, this is not a Moroccan speciality. I’ll put you down as a pain:

• those who drive brutally and insult colleagues who cut them off, before doing the same thing,
• those who impose a cassette or radio that I don’t like (reading the Koran, music from the Atlas), but an instruction from the wilaya reminds them that I have the right to ask for silence
• those who refuse to put me exactly where I want to go
• those who start a conversation by spouting platitudes I’ve heard a hundred times before: “You’re married to a Moroccan, so you’re Muslim? And you’ve got kids? Why?” (and I ask you the colour of your pants?)
• those who tell me that French people are stupid and shouldn’t be in Morocco (although, in some cases, I share that opinion)
• and those who speak absolutely no French AND don’t know the address I want to go to
• the driver who hits on me so much that he tries to grope me (the small size of the taxis allows this).

And then there are all those who are nice, who are simply trying to do their job properly, who chat without prying, who have sometimes had exciting lives, there are a few women, there are those who know their city well and tell me a bit about the Casa of yesteryear…

In short, not being Moroccan, I have the impression that there aren’t that many difficult people. Why do I say “not being Moroccan”? It’s because as soon as I start dressing Moroccan-style, the number of pick-ups skyrockets. Painful as it may be, I’ve never felt in danger of being raped…

Safety

Despite some scary stories, I’ve never felt unsafe in a taxi. The main risk comes from pickpockets who might grab your belongings. To make sure you feel at ease, here are a few tips:

• taxis rarely have a central locking system, so make sure your door is locked
• don’t use your mobile phone “street-side” but, for example, with your left hand if you’re in a right-hand seat
• similarly, do not leave your wallet or purse open near an open window
• don’t give money to beggars who may ask you for it at certain crossroads: some are sincere, others are simply
• trying to get you to roll down the window so they can dive into the car and steal something

Booking a taxi

If Uber has had some success, it’s because it’s not easy to book a taxi in Morocco. There aren’t any large central reservations offices everywhere, and those that do exist don’t really work very well (it’s a shame that I-Taxi has stopped…). But it can be done.

Having your own taxi

The first solution is to get the mobile numbers of taxis, who will give you much more for a journey. Make sure you ask for their timetables: if you call a taxi during the day for a night journey, he won’t pass the order on to his colleague (who may also be a “difficult driver”).

Taxi companies

There are still a few taxi and transport companies, especially in Casablanca. The green taxis still operate in Casablanca (05.22.48.48.01) and Marrakesh (05.24.40.94.94). There have been a few negative comments from Internet users about the quality of the service. If something goes wrong, don’t hesitate to complain. The company had some problems getting off the ground, and the concept didn’t catch on with taxi drivers who thought the service was too expensive, but it’s still here. The owner has since left Morocco under unclear circumstances, and the company is no longer in business.

The other companies are not real taxis, but tourist transport companies, which cost more than normal taxis.

Uber-Like

Uber was not the only company to launch in Morocco. Careem is a discreet competitor, with its world headquarters in Dubai. Uber’s departure for legal reasons is not reassuring for Careem’s future in Morocco, but the company has been communicating aggressively in recent days, indicating that it is not in the same situation. And in 2020, it’s still here. The fact that it works with taxis, unlike Uber, is the reason for its success.

Heetch, which ran into serious problems in France with a €600,000 fine, had to completely change its model and work with professional drivers. They prepared for their arrival in Morocco by working with the taxi unions. And it was perhaps the opening of their business on 13 February that convinced Uber to pack up: faced with “legal” competition that had been accepted by the unions, there was no longer any room for manoeuvre to impose the “participatory economy”.

The Heetch application can be downloaded for Android and iPhone from the website

A typo or syntax error? You can select the text and hit Ctrl+Enter to send us a message. Thank you! If this post interested you, maybe you can also leave a comment. We'd love to exchange with you !