Survey result on owners and drivers of urban taxis announced

At the request of the urban taxi trade, the Transport Department (TD) has conducted a questionnaire survey on the views of taxi owners and drivers on the proposed urban taxi fare concession.

The survey was conducted as the urban taxi trade could not reach a consensus to offer concessionary fares raised by some of the Urban Taxi Trade Conference.

The findings of the survey were presented to the urban taxi trade and were accepted by them today (June 14).

The overall assessment revealed that 27 per cent of the trade members agreed to give concessionary taxi fare, 66 per cent of them were against and seven per cent of them gave no response.

As for drivers, 4,321 or 29 per cent agreed to concession, 9,149 or 60 per cent disagreed and 1,659 or 11 per cent gave no views.

As for owners, 2,113 or 25 per cent agreed, 5,978 or 72 per cent were against, and 222 or three per cent gave no views.

A TD spokesman said : "Some 15,250 questionnaires were sent to all registered owners of urban taxis by post on May 25. A total of 8,313 questionnaires were received by June 8.

"As for in-service taxi drivers, they were invited to respond to a questionnaire at the 29 designated LPG gas refilling stations by field staff of the Transport Departments consultant during face-to-face interviews from 11am on May 30 (Friday) to 11am on May 31."

A total of 15,129 urban taxi drivers were successfully approached, of which 13,470 successfully completed the interview while 1,659 had abstained. Another 2,435 taxi drivers refused to provide any information including their names and taxi registration numbers.

Transport Department will continue to discuss the matter with the trade.

End/Saturday, June 14, 2003