Termination of NT taxi temporary fare concession

The Government announced today (July 8) that the New Territories (NT) taxi temporary fare concession which took effect on June 8, 2003 would be terminated on Saturday (July 12).

"The decision is made in response to the majority view of NT taxi operators reflected in the result of Transport Department (TD)'s survey on the trade," a Government spokesman said.

TD conducted surveys on the effectiveness of the temporary fare concession in the past month. These include a survey on the NT taxi trade, a survey on taxi passengers and a taximeter reading survey.

He said: "Objective information about the impact of the fare concession was obtained from the taximeter reading survey.

"The survey findings indicated that there were increases in the average daily number of paid trips per NT taxi, the average daily paid kilometres per NT taxi and the average daily fare revenue per NT taxi in general during the period between June 8 and July 3, 2003 after the implementation of the fare concession.

"In particular, there has been noticeable increase in long trips which are eligible for the concession. On the other hand, short trips (below 3.4 km) which were not part of the concession scheme registered a decline in ridership.

"Under the survey on the NT taxi trade, valid questionnaires were received from about 75 per cent of the estimated total number of in-service drivers and about 54 per cent of the total number of registered NT taxi owners. Overall, the survey results indicated that about 80 per cent of the respondents did not agree to the continuation of the temporary fare concession, " he said.

TD briefed the trade on the survey findings on July 5, 2003. The trade considered that in the light of the majority view of NT taxi operators as reflected in the result of the survey on the NT taxi trade, the temporary fare concession should be terminated as soon as possible.

The spokesman said: "We have previously announced that we would decide on the continuation of the concession on the basis of the majority view reflected by the results of the survey on the trade. Accordingly, we sought the approval of the Chief Executive in Council (CE-in-Council) today (July 8) to terminate the temporary fare concession. The relevant Legislative Council Sub-Committee was consulted beforehand and supported early termination of the temporary fare concession."

In response to concerns about illegal practices of individual NT taxi operators which affected the interest of the law-abiding taxi operators, the Administration has also stepped up enforcement actions against illegal taxi radios.

During June 17 to 26, 2003, a total of six joint operations were conducted by the Police and the Office of Telecommunication Authority. Some 210 taxis were intercepted for inspection. A total of 24 suspected-to-be illegal radio transceivers were seized and 19 taxi drivers were arrested. The enforcement actions are effective in curbing such illegal practices and will hopefully help ensure a level playing field in the market. Such surveillance will continue.

"On the issue of temporary fare concession, the role of the Administration has been to act promptly and effectively to respond to the reasonable requests of the trade. In the process, the trade has benefitted in terms of market promotion and rectification of unfair trade practice brought about by illegal offers of fare discount," the spokesman said.

The incident also led to a review of the current mechanism for consulting the trade with the aim of including representatives of those individual taxi drivers who are not members of major taxi associations," he said.

The termination of the temporary fare concession was approved by the CE-in-Council toady. The relevant Regulations will be published in Gazette on July 11, 2003.

End/Tuesday, July 8, 2003