Full-time taxi drivers last year on average earned NT$46,045 a month, a NT$1,583 decrease from 2015, a report on taxi operations released every two years by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications said.
The data did not show whether the decrease was due to competition from Uber, the ministry said, adding that the US platform entered Taiwan in 2013, but the average monthly income of full-time taxi drivers had increased by NT$2,333 from 2013 to 2015.
There is about a 3 percent difference between the time period in which the data were collected for 2015 and last year, so the decrease might not reflect an actual decrease in drivers’ income, it said.
The data showed that from 2015 to last year, full-time drivers’ average monthly operating costs increased by NT$266, from NT$20,498 to NT$20,764.
Drivers who belonged to a taxi fleet had an average monthly income of NT$50,951 last year, NT$10,519 more than those who did not, the data showed.
Average monthly operating costs for those who were members of a taxi fleet was NT$4,444 higher than for non-affiliated drivers, but affiliated drivers still earned a net NT$6,000 more than independent ones, the report said.
More than 51.1 percent of full-time taxi drivers were members of a fleet last year, the data showed, the first time that more than half were part of one.
Drivers said they did not join a fleet because they did not want to be managed or restricted by a taxi company (36.2 percent) or the fees were too high (22.5 percent), the ministry said.
Full-time drivers worked an average of 9.8 hours per day last year, but their cars were vacant for 3.1 hours, or 31.6 percent, of those hours, the report said. They covered an average of 139.6km per day, 41.1km of which was without passengers, it said.
Compared with 2015, the taxis’ idle hours declined by 1.4 percent and distance driven without passengers fell by 1 percent, the report added.
The falling vacancy rates might have to do with changes in the way that drivers find passengers, as technology has helped reduce the time and distance taxis need to drive to pick up the next rider.
There were 87,604 registered taxis in Taiwan last year, 625 more than in 2015, the data showed.
Taipei and New Taipei City had the highest number of registered taxis at 28,450 and 22,243 respectively, the report said.
Taxis in the two municipalities made up 57.9 percent of taxi registrations nationwide last year, but the number in both municipalities declined by 300 to 400 from 2015 to last year, it added.
WANG RELEASED: A police investigation showed that an organized crime group allegedly taught their clients how to pretend to be sick during medical exams Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) and 11 others were released on bail yesterday, after being questioned for allegedly dodging compulsory military service or forging documents to help others avoid serving. Wang, 33, was catapulted into stardom for his role in the coming-of-age film Our Times (我的少女時代). Lately, he has been focusing on developing his entertainment career in China. The New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office last month began investigating an organized crime group that is allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified documents. Police in New Taipei City Yonghe Precinct at the end of last month arrested the main suspect,
A cat named Mikan (蜜柑) has brought in revenue of more than NT$10 million (US$305,390) for the Kaohsiung MRT last year. Mikan, born on April 4, 2020, was a stray cat before being adopted by personnel of Kaohsiung MRT’s Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station. Mikan was named after a Japanese term for mandarin orange due to his color and because he looks like an orange when curled up. He was named “station master” of Ciaotou Sugar Refinery Station in September 2020, and has since become famous. With Kaohsiung MRT’s branding, along with the release of a set of cultural and creative products, station master Mikan
LITTORAL REGIMENTS: The US Marine Corps is transitioning to an ‘island hopping’ strategy to counterattack Beijing’s area denial strategy The US Marine Corps (USMC) has introduced new anti-drone systems to bolster air defense in the Pacific island chain amid growing Chinese military influence in the region, The Telegraph reported on Sunday. The new Marine Air Defense Integrated System (MADIS) Mk 1 is being developed to counter “the growing menace of unmanned aerial systems,” it cited the Marine Corps as saying. China has constructed a powerful defense mechanism in the Pacific Ocean west of the first island chain by deploying weapons such as rockets, submarines and anti-ship missiles — which is part of its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy against adversaries — the
Eleven people, including actor Darren Wang (王大陸), were taken into custody today for questioning regarding the evasion of compulsory military service and document forgery, the New Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said. Eight of the people, including Wang, are suspected of evading military service, while three are suspected of forging medical documents to assist them, the report said. They are all being questioned by police and would later be transferred to the prosecutors’ office for further investigation. Three men surnamed Lee (李), Chang (張) and Lin (林) are suspected of improperly assisting conscripts in changing their military classification from “stand-by
RSS