Survey result on owners and drivers of NT taxis announced

At the request of the New Territories (NT) taxi trade, the Transport Department (TD) reviewed the effectiveness of the NT taxi concessionary fare scheme which was launched on 8 June 2003. A survey was conducted to gauge the views of NT taxi owners and drivers.

A Transport Department spokesman said :"The surveys were to gauge the views of taxi operators on whether or not they support the current temporary NT taxi concessionary fare scheme to continue up to the end of the 6-month period on 7 December 2003. We will decide on the way forward on the concessionary fare scheme on the basis of the majority view reflected by the results of the surveys."

The findings of the survey were presented to the NT taxi trade and were accepted by them today (July 5).

The overall assessment revealed that 14 per cent of the trade members agreed to continue the temporary concessionary taxi fare, 80 per cent of them were against and six per cent of them gave no response.

As for drivers, six per cent agreed to continue the concession, 86 per cent disagreed and eight per cent gave no views.

As for owners, 23 per cent agreed,75 per cent were against, and three per cent gave no views.

Some 2,838 questionnaires were sent to all registered owners of NT taxis by post on June 19. A total of 1,528 questionnaires were received by June 30.

"As for in-service NT taxi drivers, they were invited to respond to a questionnaire at the 13 designated LPG gas refilling stations by field staff of the Transport Departments consultant during face-to-face interviews from 11am on June 23 to 11am on June 24," the spokesman said.

A total of 3,517 NT taxi drivers were successfully approached, of which 3,286 successfully completed the interview while 168 had abstained. Another 63 taxi drivers refused to provide any information including their names and taxi registration numbers.

Transport Department will seek the approval from the Chief Executive-in-Council to terminate the concession as soon as possible.

End/Saturday, July 5, 2003