You may have heard about this type of transport license over the last few years. VTC stands for “Voiture de Transport avec Chauffeur”. Although VTC has been around for a number of years its use has become more popular recently due to the regulations changing, with a view to phasing out the old “Transport Public Routier Collectif De Personnes”.
VTC is generally used by smaller operators or even owner operators as a way of setting up a small transport business easily. The benefit to the customer is that the vehicle has to be of a certain standard (which has been lowered with the news regs) but the biggest change is that the driver needs to be qualified. Either the driver has passed certain exams (similar to Taxi exams) or can prove 2 years experience as a professional driver.
VTC vehicles need to be registered and controlled by an official organisation who issue a sticker to be displayed in the front and rear window, and, can ONLY be operated by a driver who is in possession of a VTC “Carte Professional” which need to be displayed in the front window too. With out both of these two things in the front window the vehicle is illegal.
A vehicle operating as a VTC is NOT a Taxi, and should not be used as one. Its against the law and breaks a number of regulations, mainly it needs to be booked in advance and cant be stopped on the street, so it doesn’t work as a night time taxi vehicle, even though in Chamonix a number of VTC operators actually use their vehicles in this way.
