Radio Taxi Venezia: What the Service Is Like and What It Really Costs

Radio Taxi Venezia is the trading name of the Cooperativa Artigiana Radiotaxi, the outfit that dispatches the road taxis of Mestre, Marghera, Piazzale Roma, Marco Polo airport and the Stazione Marittima cruise terminal. The number is 041 5964, staffed 24 hours a day.

Our verdict in short: on the rules it is the most transparent operator in Venetian transport — published fixed fares, listed supplements, a tariff card on display — and on availability it is the most fragile. The reviews describe a service that works well when there is a free car and leaves you stranded when there isn’t, above all in the early morning. If you have an early flight, don’t stake it on a single phone booking.

What it is: a cooperative, not a consortium

The difference isn’t a technicality. Radio Taxi Venezia is a cooperative society of self-employed taxi drivers, set up in the Seventies to organise and coordinate its members’ work. Today it reports 94 members — described as almost every taxi driver in the Comune di Venezia — and 10 employees.

The registered office is at via Piave 208 in Mestre, next to Venezia Mestre station; the control room is in Marcon, on vicolo Perosi. Paid-up share capital is 947,850 euro.

The declared fleet runs to around 120 cars, with an average age under four years, Euro 4 standard or better, minivans seating up to 8 passengers and wheelchair-adapted vehicles. The cooperative claims to have been among the first in Italy to fit on-board CCTV. These figures carry no date on the page that publishes them: treat them as orders of magnitude.

Institutionally its position is solid: Marco Polo airport names it as its own taxi service provider, and the city council lists it alongside the Comitato Unitario Taxi on its fares page.

The right number (and the wrong one going around)

One detail worth putting in writing, because it circulates widely: 041 5952080 is not a Radio Taxi Venezia number. It appears neither on the cooperative’s site nor on the airport’s taxi page; a directory aggregator publishes it, and pairs it with a postcode that doesn’t match via Piave 208 either.

These are the contacts the cooperative publishes:

Besides the phone you can book through the appTaxi app and through the online shop, which sells prepaid vouchers for a named route, valid 180 days. The shop covers Venice and Treviso airports, Mestre station and town centre, Piazzale Roma, Park Petroli, the M9 museum, Carpenedo, the Venice, Fusina and San Basilio cruise terminals and around thirty hotels. On refunds the shop’s terms of sale say one thing only, and it is worth knowing: the customer may withdraw without giving a reason and without penalty within ten working days of receiving the voucher, with the price refunded within sixty days of notice. Beyond that window there is nothing: the terms don’t say what happens to an expired or unused voucher, nor whether a ride can be rescheduled. Note that the wording echoes the version of the Italian consumer code that predates the reform extending the withdrawal period to fourteen days.

What it offers and what it costs

The fixed fares the cooperative publishes are the council-set ones. The airport independently confirms the first three.

Where there is no fixed fare you pay on the meter: flag-fall €3.20, minimum fare €8.00 by day and €11.00 at night or on public holidays, then €1.70/km up to €16.52 of fare and €2.15/km beyond. Below 20 km/h the meter switches to charging by time. The published supplements are €3.20 for nights between 22:00 and 06:00 and public holidays, €4.80 for the airport and the Marittima (not cumulative) and €1.20 for each item of luggage with a side over 50 cm, or for a small dog.

There is also a loyalty card giving 10% off metered fares: €10 for residents of the Comune, €20 elsewhere in the Veneto, €40 for everyone else. It cannot be combined with the riduzione rosa, the 10% discount for women travelling alone in the evening — and here a footnote: the council’s PDF puts it between 21:00 and 02:00, while the cooperative’s page writes “from 9pm to 2am”. Same thing, sources that don’t quite line up.

Strengths

• One number for the whole Comune, airport and Marittima included, with no need to work out who covers which area.
• Fixed fares published and verifiable in two places, the cooperative and the airport: almost unheard of in Venetian transport.
• Modern booking channels: app, SMS, online shop, card terminals on board, cards and PayPal accepted.
• A recent and varied fleet, with minivans for up to 8 and wheelchair-adapted cars.
• The bill can be challenged: the tariff card is on display, the supplements are public and complaints have an official address to go to.

Weaknesses

• The fixed fare doesn’t apply to phone bookings, except at the Marghera and Favaro call points between 07:00 and 22:00. Book by phone and you pay on the meter, which starts when the car sets off towards you, not when you get in.
• Fixed fares only apply during the staffed hours of the rank you leave from, and those hours are not published: neither the cooperative nor the council sets out the shifts rank by rank. The only stated windows are for the Marghera and Favaro call points, 07:00–22:00. For everything else the only way to find out is to ask the driver before you get in.
• One discrepancy in the fixed fares: on the Ospedale dell’Angelo – Mestre via Poerio run the council’s schedule says €10.00 and the cooperative says €11.00.
• Coverage limited to the mainland and the gateways: no road taxi enters the historic centre.

What travellers say

On Tripadvisor the “Radiotaxi Venezia e Mestre” listing scores 3.1 out of 5 from 102 reviews, fourth of seven in the transport category in Mestre. The spread is sharply polarised: 38 excellent against 36 terrible, with little in between. It is a small, self-selected sample, so the recurring themes matter more than the average score.

The dominant theme is availability. One reviewer claims it is “practically impossible to find a taxi between 6:45 and 9”; others describe waits of over an hour at the airport or at Mestre station, and one case of a booking confirmed for 04:15 then cancelled by text a few minutes later, with a flight missed as a result.

The second theme is disputes over supplements: someone who says they agreed the €35 flat fare from the airport and paid 50, someone else listing a €4 airport supplement and €6 per suitcase on an €18 metered fare. It is worth holding those against the tariff card: the official supplements are €4.80 and €1.20, so those amounts match no published item.

On the positive side, punctuality comes up repeatedly, along with clean cars, card payment accepted without argument and instances of drivers behaving well, including returning forgotten belongings. We found no Google rating, and an approval percentage circulating on Facebook is too flimsy to quote.

When to choose it, and the alternatives

A road taxi makes sense if there are two or more of you, if you are travelling at night, if you have heavy luggage or if your destination is on the mainland. For one person heading into the historic centre it is nearly always the most expensive choice.

• Airport to Piazzale Roma: €40 per car against €12 per person on the express coach. For two the taxi costs almost double, for four it wins.
• Towards the historic centre: the taxi drops you at Piazzale Roma regardless. If your hotel is on the water, weigh up a water taxi or a boat in water taxi, Alilaguna or vaporetto.
• Booking ahead: if you need a guaranteed vehicle at a precise time, transfers bookable online come with a written confirmation that a phone call doesn’t give you. The three ways to book are set out in how to book.
• Rules, ranks and the meter in detail: road taxis in Venice and Mestre and our taxis in Mestre review.
• If someone offers you a private car away from the rank, read NCC in Venice first: different rules apply.

Radio Taxi Venezia remains the reference point for road taxis in the Comune, with public fares and a single number that works. The practical advice never changes, and it comes from the city council itself: ask explicitly for the fixed fare before the ride starts, and if you have a dawn flight, keep an already-booked alternative in reserve.