Drivers joining a diversified taxi service program generally earn more money and have a low taxi vacancy rate, a survey conducted by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications showed.
The ministry launched the program in October 2016 to help give Taiwanese taxi drivers a competitive edge against Uber and other ride-hailing platform operators.
Drivers joining the program must not drive a yellow vehicle, and unlike regular cab drivers, they are not allowed to pick up passengers from the roadside, but can accept bookings from a diversified taxi service platform or an application.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
Passengers of a diversified taxi service can see the estimated fare in advance and pay using electronic payment platforms.
As of last year, the nation had 91,426 registered taxis, down from 91,898 in 2019, and the number of taxis in the diversified taxi program rose from 8,683 in 2019 to 17,878 last year, the biannual survey showed.
About 58 percent of diversified taxis operated in Taipei and New Taipei City, survey data showed.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the average monthly revenue of a full-time taxi driver dropped from NT$45,568 in 2019 to NT$41,771 last year. They took an average of 4.4 days off per month last year, up from 3.9 days in 2019. Last year, taxis ran an average of 11.3 trips per day, down from 11.9 in 2019, it said.
However, a full-time diversified taxi driver last year earned an average of NT$49,498 per month and had an average net income of NT$28,260, the survey showed.
Last year, diversified taxi drivers took an average of 4.6 days off per month and ran 13.2 trips per day. Although diversified and regular taxi drivers worked about the same number of hours per day last year, diversified taxi drivers had a lower vehicle vacancy rate in terms of time and distance, the survey showed.
Regular taxi drivers worked an average of 9.4 hours per day, during which the vehicle was vacant for an average of three hours, while diversified taxi drivers worked 9.3 hours per day and had a vacant vehicle for 2.7 hours, the survey showed.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
RSS