It is true that the ubiquity of Taipei City's taxis has provided overwhelming convenience to time-pressed commuters, travellers and office workers. Passengers can either flag down a cab on the side of the road, or call one via the radio calling system.
It is also true that the number of taxis zipping through the city's narrow streets and snaky alleyways is surprisingly large.
According to official statistics, as of January Taipei City has about 36,000 taxis, or one taxi per every 65 city residents. The ratio is even more impressive when the additional 34,000 taxis from outside of the city are added, bringing the ratio of taxis to city residents down to 40.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
And it's also a fact that about 60 percent of the taxis traveling on the road are empty.
It is widely believed that the completion of the mass rapid transit (MRT) system and the convenience of public buses may have contributed to the sluggish business. Compounding the problem is the 12.5 percent price hike of the taxi fare last December.
Although the city in 1995 implemented a program to regulate the licensing system of taxis, the initiative has been criticized as "the distant water that cannot quench a nearby fire."
Three major groupings
The excessive number of taxis did not appear on Taipei's streets overnight. One needs to know that the taxi business consists of three major groupings.
The first is the so-called "taxi companies" (
As of January, the city had about 1,400 taxi companies. Such companies must have at least five cabs and a maximum of 100.
The second group consists of individual taxi drivers (
Finally, there are the "cooperative taxi companies" (
Criteria for cab drivers also vary from one grouping to another. While those interested in joining the taxi companies must be at least 20 years old with valid vocation certificates, individual taxi drivers need to be at least 30 years old with five years taxi driving experience without any previous violation records.
A long history
The evolution of the city's taxi business is a long one. It dates back to 1959 when motorized taxi cabs gradually replaced man-powered tricycles.
To help save the declining tricycle business, the city encouraged tricycle owners to sell off their vehicles for NT$5,000 each. Owners could also obtain a taxi operation license if they sold a total of three tricycles.
Wu Ching-fu (
"I remember back then the flag-fall rate was NT$4. I bought a brand-new car with NT$200,000 after losing my job, trying to make ends meet. At peak times, I made about NT$2,000 a month, almost double the amount made by a civil servant," he said.
Over the first 30 years, Wu said, he had seen taxi companies take advantage of taxi drivers.
"Since they [taxi companies] were entitled to obtaining the operation licenses, we were forced to lease the license from them, and sometimes prices could go as high as NT$140,000 apiece," he said.
Taxi companies also disliked dedicated drivers, because the higher the turnover, the better for the taxi companies.
"They made huge profits by regiving the driver only a small portion of the guarantee bond in return for the leased operation license. Besides, they got to set the fee structure themselves. They set it so low that many were forced to quit months into the business. It was a vicious cycle," he said.
However, things took a dramatic turn in 1990 when the taxi drivers' union was formed and when the vocation licenses were made available to individual taxi drivers.
"At first only those with 10 years cab driving experience were qualified for the license, but then the standard was lowered to the current five years after our year-long protest," Wu said.
In 1996, the city government allowed the cooperative taxi companies to be formed.
However, the cars driven by individual taxi drivers and those of the cooperative companies are required to be less than three years old.
"That's why many people still prefer to join the taxi companies," Wu said.
To regulate or not?
To tackle the problem of the excessive number of taxis, some argue that regulating the licensing system is the answer, but others hold a different view.
Chang Chen-liang (
"Think about it, does it make any sense that the city regulates the number of its taxis while other neighboring counties and cities do just the opposite?" he said.
Taxi drivers have also been criticized for their complicated personal background. Some of them even had prior police records.
Chang, however, dismissed the talk.
"Certified cabbies never have previous criminal records. If any do, it must be for lesser crimes," he said. "To be a certified taxi driver, candidates need to meet certain criteria, one of them is no prior police record of violent crimes."
To upgrade the quality of taxi drivers, education is key, Chen said.
"It's a better idea to educate more better drivers than to punish poor drivers," he said.
The city has been offering three-day educational training programs to potential taxi drivers before they apply for a vocational license. Currently, Taipei City and Ilan County are the only two local governments providing such training programs.
Unions say regulation is key
Despite the city's policy of deregulation, both the taxi driver union and the taxi transportation federation favor the idea of regulation.
Wu of the Taipei Taxi Drivers Union said that service quality has a lot to do with the fee structure and working environment.
"Taxi drivers would value their job more if it's a well paid job," he said. "Do you think you would be in a good mood if you were confined to a small space all day long and need to work extra hours everyday?"
According to Wu, a taxi driver needs to drive between 12 and 14 hours a day to make a profit.
He added that the completion of the MRT and the recent price hike did not have a dramatic impact on the business.
"The MRT system is, after all, not that convenient in some areas. However, we're losing many long-distance customers," he said.
Chen Yuan-min (
"When the city decided to regulate in 1995, the situation had already gotten out of hand because way too many licenses had been issued," Chen said.
The city in 1995 passed a bylaw to allow an increase in the number of taxis in accordance with population expansion, with one extra license issued for every 175 extra inhabitants.
Chen said that the city should not have made licenses available to co-ops in 1996 in the first place.
"It added fuel to fire when it issued 9,000 more licenses to the co-ops because the market was already saturated," he said.
"A good alternative to tackle the problem in the future is to have those who are interested in the taxi business bid for operation licenses. Winners would be bound to offer quality service, or they would have their license revoked," he added.
Chen Teng (
"It's rather hard to get rid of poorly performing drivers because they're mobile. If they do get fired from one company, they can easily join another," he said.
Chen, who opened his own taxi company 35 years ago, said that the taxi business has gradually gone downhill since 1996.
"The golden age was between 1986 and 1996. Back then a driver could make as much as NT$4,000 a day. Now drivers are lucky if they can make NT$2,000 a day," he said.
The economic slowdown definitely has had an adverse impact on Chen, who owns 15 taxi companies with a total of 350 cars.
"About 20 to 30 percent of my drivers just couldn't afford the monthly fee and took off with the cars. I will be lucky if I get the cars back," he said.
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