- The Consumer Council (CC) welcomes the Transport Advisory Committee's proactive step in reviewing the mode of operation and quality of the taxi services in Hong Kong. CC supports the direction that improvement measures identified and adopted to broaden the taxi's trade business opportunities should at the same time benefit the public, through the provision of competitive taxi services to meet their demand. CC would like to submit views on the following areas of taxi services to the Transport Advisory Committee for consideration:
- (a) Mode of charging
- (b) Mode of services
- (c) Service quality
Model of Charging
- CC is concerned that if price regulation is revoked, a lot of disputes would likely arise between drivers and passengers. Moreover bargaining between drivers and passengers during rush hours could worsen the traffic condition. CC is also concerned that if different taxi drivers are allowed to offer different services at different prices, consumers will have difficulty in distinguishing between taxis to enable them to make an informed choice. It goes without saying that not all consumers have the skill and ability to bargain with taxi drivers on the fare. In those circumstances, the lifting of price regulation will tend to create chaos and confusion.
- CC understands that currently fare bargaining chiefly occurs with long distance journeys but not with taxis plying for hire for short distances. The lowering of fare renders taxis more competitive when compared with other means of transports for long distance journeys. In CC's view, fare bargaining on the part of consumers should continue to be allowed, and it would serve to achieve a specific purpose, but that does not mean that price regulation has to be lifted completely. The Government should continue its price regulation policy but introduce flexibility by allowing certain degree of price bargaining for long distance service. Having said that, if there is strong evidence that some taxi drivers are willing to lower the fare to get more business in long distance services, the Government should assess whether that reflects room for taxi fare reduction for long distance service.
Model of Services
- CC supports studying alternative modes of taxi services such as fixed-fare taxi services for specific locations to provide more choices for consumers. Moreover, CC believes offering more product differentiation could lead to greater competition in the industry. However, in order to provide incentives to taxi drivers to invest in product differentiation, e.g. more comfortable seating, in-car entertainment, perhaps guaranteed spoken English skills, etc., some form of financial reward must be in place. A flexible option is to allow the operators to charge a higher fare than regular taxis for premium services.
- For product differentiation to work, passengers must be able to distinguish between different types of taxis before engaging them. This means that the government must lift the rigid rules on the appearance of taxis so that passengers can easily distinguish between a regular taxi and a premium service taxi.
Service quality
- CC considers that there is room for improvement in the quality of taxi services. Examples of undesirable attitudes and conducts of taxi drivers include keeping the radio on loudly, speaking continuously on the phone during service, smoking in the vehicle and being impolite to passengers. The Government should encourage taxi operators to focus not only on price competition but also on competition in service quality.
- Overseas experience such as a grading system on service quality and specific training for taxi drivers can be considered, although practical issues such as how to grade a taxi driven by different drivers for different shifts will have to be resolved.
