Lawmakers yesterday urged bus operators to address a driver shortage by improving compensation packages and delaying the mandatory retirement age to 70.
Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC) officials attended a meeting of the legislature’s Transportation Committee to report on its handling of a shortage of intercity bus drivers and review of the current appraisal system for bus operators.
Data from the Highway Bureau show that the nation has 3,625 intercity bus drivers and 10,806 city bus drivers, but need 772 and 1,443 more drivers respectively, the ministry said.
Photo: Taipei Times
Data from a tour bus association show that there are 17,084 tour bus drivers, with an estimated shortage of 2,500 to 3,000 drivers, the report said.
The trucking industry, which has 77,694 vehicles, is also short of drivers, it added.
The report showed that there are 282,673 people qualified to drive large vehicles, 85,896 of whom hold a large passenger-vehicle driver’s license, 98,737 hold a tractor trailer driver’s license and 98,040 hold a truck driver’s license, it said.
That indicates the workforce is sufficient, but not fully engaged in the bus industry, the report said.
More than 1,300 large vehicle drivers joined the industry after the retirement age was delayed from 65 to 68, Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) said.
As life expectancy in Taiwan continues to climb, working years could be further extended, he said.
City and intercity bus services are indispensable, as rail transport is not available everywhere, he said.
To bolster the development of the bus industry, the ministry would increase funding for operators, especially in rural areas, he said.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Chun-hsien (林俊憲) said that the shortage of large passenger-vehicle drivers has reduced city and intercity bus services, which in turn has affected travelers’ willingness to use the service due to inconvenience.
Citing last year’s 13,600 deaths or injuries from large vehicle accidents, he said the labor shortage has led to bus operators keeping incompetent drivers.
The retirement age should be delayed from 68 to 70, with supporting measures such as a work hour cap to retain skilled drivers, Lin said.
DPP Legislator Lee Kun-tse (李昆澤) said that delaying retirement and subsidizing employment would only slow the decline in the workforce, while improving working conditions for drivers could root out the problem.
Compensation packages for drivers are “fragmented” and could consist of more than 10 items for an average monthly wage of NT$60,000 to NT$90,000 (US$1,870 to US$2,805) , including 15 percent from overtime allowance, 18 percent from leave allowance, 3 percent from national holiday allowance and 36 percent from overtime premiums, he said.
That means more than one-third of a driver’s salary comes from overtime pay, Lee said, urging the Ministry of Labor to communicate with bus operators and for the MOTC to provide guidance.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lu Ming-che (魯明哲) said that many bus drivers have shifted to Uber driving because of the risks, such as unreasonable customer complaints.
The shortage has led to buses running behind schedule, DPP Legislator Tsai Chi-chang (蔡其昌) said, citing the complaints he has received about being late for work or school.
The MOTC should encourage local governments to ask bus operators to rearrange shift schedules to address the shortage, as well as give passengers early notice to use other means of transportation, he said.
The report says that after the basic fare for regular highway bus routes was raised on May 17 last year, the central government allocated an annual fund of NT$130 million for intercity bus service providers to subsidize increased costs and personnel remunerations.
On May 1, when the basic fare for national highway bus routes rose, another annual funding increase of NT$600 million was set to subsidize not only the price increase for TPass monthly transit cards, but also two-thirds of the price hike for regular tickets.
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