The Kaohsiung City Government remains undecided as to whether or not to increase taxi charges in the city, a government official said yesterday.
The director-general of the city government's Transportation Bureau, Wang Kuo-tsai (王國材), told the Taipei Times that he had not received the result of the public survey conducted by the city government's Research, Development and Evaluation Commission on whether Kaohsiung citizens would accept a taxi flag fall hike from NT$70 (US$2.11) to NT$85.
Wang said the city government will consider the rate hike by evaluating many indices in the survey, including taxi driver service quality and their standing with the public, adding that it would be unlikely to sanction the hike just because the survey showed that a hike would be tolerable to the majority of the respondents.
He said the results of the survey would be reviewed at the city government's administrative meeting and that Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (
The final decision is likely to be made sometime this month, he said, adding that the bureau would prefer to add preconditions if the rate were to be raised, such as better service.
The president of the Kaohsiung City Independent Taxi Drivers' Union, Wang Ching-cheng (王清正), issued a press release yesterday, which said that a city government official had told him the survey showed that the majority of Kaohsiung residents agreed with the hike.
The union has canceled a demonstration it planned to hold in front of the city hall tomorrow as a gesture of good will. The union had planned on mobilizing 1,000 taxis for the demonstration.
Ten representatives from the union visited the Chungho Memorial Hospital in an attempt to plead with Chen to sanction the rate increase on May 17, but were prevented from entering Chen's ward.
The rate hike proposal suggests that NT$5 be added to the NT$85 take-off fare every 250m, once the taxi has traveled an initial 1,500m.
Although Kaohsiung's taxi drivers are hoping for a rate hike, their counterparts in Taipei may not make a similar move.
Several independent taxi drivers' unions in Taipei presented rate hike proposals to the Taipei City Government last year, but withdrew them after taxi companies adopted a different business strategy by offering passengers discounts.
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