Taxi rules seek to create order

A series of new guidelines meant to make operations at the city's 700-plus taxi stands more fair and orderly for both drivers and customers will be introduced next month, local authorities said Monday.

Essentially standardizing local taxi practices, the rules that officially take effect March 1, formally prohibit taxi stand supervisors from accepting 'incentives' to bump cab drivers up in queues at busy places, including airports, transportation hubs, hotels and shopping centers, according to Huang Xiaoyong, a press officer for Shanghai Municipal Transport and Port Authority.

"We've received several complaints about taxi drivers getting preferential treatment from those who supervise taxi stands," he told the Global Times Monday. "The guidelines aim to reverse this and enforce a first-come-first-serve practice."

The idea of first-come-first-serve will also apply to customers, he said.

"Cab customers are supposed to take whichever cab arrives first," he said. "They're not to pick and choose depending on the company that the driver works for."

A traffic officer, who is often dispatched to Hongqiao International Airport, which has a basement taxi stand at Terminal 2 that sees an average of some 7,000 cabs pass through daily, said that there are always taxi disputes among drivers, who are constantly trying to bud.

"Taxi drivers get agitated when others sneak ahead of them, which happens a lot," he told the Global Times Monday. "The guidelines should help strengthen our order and reduce conflicts at major transportation hubs."

According to Zhu Zhongguo, who has worked as driver for Dazhong Taxi for more than 15 years, airport scuffles tend to arise when waiting times get too long.

"Sometimes, it takes two hours to pick up a passenger at the airport," he told the Global Times Monday. "The long waits can leave drivers desperate to pull strings to cut down on the wait."

But, if the new guidelines - for which penalties for disobeying individuals have yet to be released - are well-enforced, they could give cabbies more opportunities to obtain customers, said Zhu.

But frequent taxi riders like Hong Kong accountant Amy Au, who commonly travels for work, worried Monday that the new rules might prevent her from securing drivers from cab companies that she feels more comfortable with.

"I prefer to stick with cab drivers from big companies because they tend to be more reliable and aware of more locations around the city," she told the Global Times Monday. "At the airport, I let people behind me go ahead until I see a cab that I want to take."