Radio Taxi Venezia: road taxis between the airport, Mestre and Piazzale Roma

A drivers’ cooperative, not an app

Behind the Radio Taxi Venezia brand is the Cooperativa Artigiana Radiotaxi, a cooperative based in Mestre. It has nothing to do with boats: its white cars cover Mestre and Marghera, Piazzale Roma, the cruise terminal and Marco Polo airport. On the airport’s own website, this is the cooperative listed as the taxi service.

The cooperative was founded in 1977 by a small group of drivers. According to its website it has 94 members, which is almost every taxi driver in the municipality, and 10 employees. The declared fleet is about 120 cars with an average age under four years, including minivans for up to 8 passengers and wheelchair-accessible vehicles. The page gives no date for these figures, so treat them as indicative.

Registered office on via Piave in Mestre, dispatch centre in Marcon. In 2004, the cooperative says, it fitted cameras in its cars before anyone else in the country.

The right number (and the one to ignore)

The 24-hour switchboard is +39 041 5964. Both the cooperative and the airport publish it. The other official contacts:

• bookings and information: +39 041 595 1402
• customer desk at the airport: +39 041 936 222
• booking by SMS: +39 338 844 2000
• a smartphone app and an online voucher shop

Another number, 041 5952080, also circulates online. It doesn’t appear on the cooperative’s site or the airport’s; only one aggregator lists it, with a wrong address. Don’t use it.

The 199 48 49 50 is a different matter. It’s the regional “single number” of TaxiVeneto, the Veneto’s network of road radio-taxis, based at via Piave 208 in Mestre, the same address as the cooperative. The City of Venice also lists it on its water-taxi page, without saying who answers for boats. For a road taxi in Venice and Mestre, the number to use is still 041 5964.

Fixed fares: the routes that matter

On the main routes you don’t pay by the meter but a fixed fare set by the City of Venice (Giunta resolution no. 182 of 2013). The fixed fare shows on the meter and includes all supplements, luggage included.

Fixed fares don’t depend on journey time, which varies with traffic. As a reference, the ATVO bus takes about 20 minutes from the airport to Piazzale Roma on the same road.

The conditions matter as much as the price:

• The fixed fare applies only when you start from the rank, during that rank’s service hours.
• If you phone to book, the fixed fare no longer applies. The exceptions, from 07:00 to 22:00, are the call posts at piazza Mercato in Marghera and piazza Pastrello in Favaro.
• It applies to the shortest route, with no intermediate stops or detours.
• The city advises you to ask explicitly for the fixed fare before setting off, to avoid disputes.

The meter, when no fixed fare applies

If the trip isn’t one of the fixed routes, or if you book by phone, you pay by the meter. The cooperative’s published fares: €3.20 flag fall, minimum €8 by day and €11 at night and on public holidays, €1.70 per km in town, then €2.15.

Supplements: €3.20 at night (22:00–06:00) and on public holidays; €4.80 for trips to or from the airport or Marittima; €1.20 per bag if any one side measures over 50 cm. Women travelling alone in the evening get a 10% discount, not valid on fixed fares.

A detail that surprises many people: with a phone booking the meter starts when the taxi sets off towards you, not when you get in. A call from an address far from the rank therefore costs more.

Taxi plus boat: the maths to reach your hotel

No car can enter the historic centre. From Piazzale Roma to your hotel you need a vaporetto (€9.50 per person), a water taxi or your own feet. Here are the numbers for a hotel near Rialto, with a water taxi at the city fare from Piazzale Roma (€50 per boat):

For four people, a road taxi plus the vaporetto costs less than the ATVO bus plus the vaporetto. Taxi plus water taxi costs €90, less than the €110 direct water taxi, but with a change at Piazzale Roma and bags to move.

If you’d rather not handle the change, you can book a combined transfer. On GetYourGuide a private car-plus-boat transfer to the hotel cost €130 per booking at the time of checking, rated 4.2 from 37 reviews. According to the listing, a driver waits at the airport with a sign bearing your name, then a car and a private water taxi take you to your hotel.

It’s a product sold on GetYourGuide, not by the cooperative: the supplier, the maximum number of passengers and the included luggage are shown on the listing before you pay. The table below does the maths for up to four people as an example. Compared with the €90 do-it-yourself option it costs €40 more: that’s the price of not having to organise the change at Piazzale Roma.

How to book

• At the rank: the official ones, including Marco Polo, Piazzale Roma and Mestre railway station. It’s the only way to be sure of the fixed fare.
• By phone or SMS: 24 hours a day; the meter starts from wherever the taxi is.
• Online voucher: the cooperative’s shop sells prepaid rides on set routes (Venice and Treviso airports, Mestre, Piazzale Roma, the cruise terminal, about thirty hotels), valid for 180 days.

Payment by Visa, Mastercard, American Express, PayPal or card terminal in the car. There’s also a loyalty card giving 10% off metered rides: for non-residents of the Veneto it costs €40 a year, so it’s not worth it for a short stay.

An NCC (noleggio con conducente, private hire with driver) is not a taxi: by law it can’t be hailed in the street or wait at taxi ranks, and must be booked in advance. If someone offers you an unbooked ride at the rank, it isn’t a regular service. Uber lists Venice among its cities, but warns that you may wait longer for a car here.

What travellers report

At the time of checking, 102 Tripadvisor reviews gave the “Radiotaxi Venezia e Mestre” listing an average of 3.1. The spread is highly polarised: 38 excellent and 36 terrible, with very little in between.

The dominant theme in recent reviews is availability. One reviewer writes that between 06:45 and 09:00 finding a taxi is almost impossible. Another describes a 04:15 ride that was confirmed and then cancelled by SMS at 04:32, after the booked time, resulting in a missed flight. Others describe waiting more than sixty minutes, both at Marco Polo and outside Mestre station.

Second theme: disputed charges. One reviewer says they paid €50 instead of the fixed €35 airport–Mestre fare; another lists supplements different from the published ones (€4 for the airport, €6 per suitcase, against the official €4.80 and €1.20). These are individual customers’ reports, not established findings.

Third: vouchers. Some reviewers advise against them, since you get the fixed fare at the rank anyway; others used them without problems. Positive reviews mention punctuality, clean cars, cards accepted and honest drivers, down to a forgotten iPhone that was returned.

If something goes wrong, complaints about road taxis go in writing to the City: gestione.mobilita@comune.venezia.it or certified email (PEC) mobilitatrasporti@pec.comune.venezia.it. Note the car number and ask for a receipt.

Who it suits, and who it doesn’t

Alternatives to compare

The ATVO bus covers the same airport–Piazzale Roma route at €12 per person; the ACTV Aerobus at €10. If you’d rather arrive by water right to a pier, see the water taxi from the airport and the private water taxi.

For Mestre, Treviso and every combination of car and boat, the reference guide is the one on road taxis. For the cruise terminal, the cruise port page compares car, People Mover and water taxi.