Letters | Quick route to better rides on Hong Kong taxis: licence system reform

Transport and logistics

Letters

Published: 6:45am, 11 Nov 2020

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I am writing in response to “Transport industry players call for revamp of Hong Kong’s ride-hailing market, upgrade of taxi fleet” (October 20).

In view of Hong Kong’s notoriously poor taxi service, the government had planned to introduce a franchised taxi services bill, enabling a 600-vehicle fleet to offer premium ride-hailing services. I believe the bill was not useful to start with and has rightly been dropped.

Franchised taxis will not automatically solve the problem of badly maintained vehicles or drivers being rude to customers. Drivers often demand more money than the actual fare, cheat tourists on routes, and refuse fares when the journey is short. What the government really needs to do is strengthen control of taxi licences. As these licences do not have an expiry date, they are seen as a speculative asset; and owners have no incentive to improve their services.

Moreover, the proposed premium taxis, with a starting fare of HK$36, would have been pricier than that of the existing private ride-hailing service, Uber. It would make more sense to address the legal hurdles to that instead of introducing franchised taxi services.

Some taxi drivers opposed the introduction of franchised taxis as it would mean competition. I can’t understand this argument, as premium taxis have a much higher flag fall and are thus aimed at a different market segment. If the existing taxi drivers improved their attitude and maintained their vehicles better, many people would choose to use their services.

Uber driver numbers in Hong Kong surge during Covid-19 crisis

To help the taxi industry, the government should reform the original system. It could cancel all the existing licences and release new ones with an expiry date. This would give more people a chance to own the taxi they drive instead of renting it from licence owners who care little about customer service and are only interested in the money received at the end of the day.

The government should not bow to the taxi cartel and should serve the people.

Yuki Wong, Tseung Kwan O

Rate taxi drivers to improve service quality

I am writing in response to the scrapped franchised taxi services bill, which proposed to launch a ride-hailing fleet of about 600 premium taxis, offering services such as electronic payment and Wi-fi. However, the fare would have been 50 per cent higher than that of a normal taxi. It was therefore reasonable that the bill was halted in light of the current economic slump.

While they offer similar services, Hong Kong taxis are considered an inferior choice to Uber. Passengers are fed up of taxi drivers’ misbehaviour, such as overcharging, cherry-picking hires and taking circuitous routes. However, Uber services are strictly speaking not legal without a hire-car permit, even though the company continues to operate in Hong Kong.

The franchised taxi services bill was introduced to address these issues, but I believe it is an inadequate attempt to balance the ride-hailing market in Hong Kong. The franchised taxi services idea is not feasible and might adversely affect the existing taxi market.

As Hong Kong is a small city, most passenger trips are short. Therefore, a premium taxi service would not be very attractive to passengers. People will continue to choose Uber, which is a premium service at a competitive rate that is fixed at the start of the journey, rather than premium taxis.

Instead of launching franchised services, the government should first deploy more resources to tackle misbehaving taxi drivers and upgrade the existing pool of 18,000-odd cabs.

A rating scheme for taxi drivers is worth implementing. Passengers could be asked to rate drivers after their ride, and this score could be used to penalise those who behave badly. This would help improve the quality of taxi services by discouraging disagreeable behaviour, such as taking circuitous routes or impatience.

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Taxi driver delivers joy to Hongkongers with a guestbook

Undeniably, this is not an opportune time to introduce a premium taxi service, as the economy and people’s earnings have been hard hit by Covid-19. However, the government should take into account the costs and benefits of premium taxis in deciding whether to reintroduce the bill in the future.

Carrie Chan, Tseung Kwan O

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