Taxis driving at Noi Bai airport in Hanoi (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) - Taxifirms are bristling over a draft regulation that will place greaterrestrictions over their operations in the capital city.
They say the new rules will make it even more difficult for themto survive.
The Hanoi Department of Transport (DoT) is collecting feedback ona draft regulation dealing with the public transportation services by carwithin the city limits.
The city’s authorities believe that restrictions contained in theregulation, set to be approved by the end of 2017, are needed to exert greatertraffic control.
Representatives of the Hanoi Taxi Association (HTA) and other taxifirms have responded negatively to the proposed restrictions, saying they coulddrive them into bankruptcy.
A major sticking point for the firms is a provision that saystaxis will only be allowed to pick up passengers in the area where the vehiclesare registered, and will not be allowed to park or pick up passengers fromelsewhere.
Practically, this means that Hanoi will be divided into two areasnumbered one and two. Number one will cover districts within the city limit andnumber two will encompass districts in the city’s extended areas. Depending ontheir license plates, taxis will not be allowed to park and wait for passengersin areas that they are not assigned. They can, of course drop off passengersanywhere in the city from their assigned areas.
This will require all taxis to follow strict regulations onseveral aspects of their operations, including pickup and drop-off zones andhandover times for each shift and location.
For instance, within a month, a taxi must maintain a minimum of 70percent of its operating time within its assigned region, and is only allowedto stop for passengers for a maximum of two minutes at pickup and drop-offzones.
The draft also prevents taxis from freely staying in publicparking lots reserved for hired vehicles for more than twenty minutes whilethey wait for passengers in their assigned area. After 20 minutes, taxis musteither move out from the parking lot or pay extra money to stay.
Do Quoc Binh, HTA’s Chairman, commented that this regulation willprove to be “impossible.”
He said the boundary between the two areas might not bedistinguishable at all times for drivers to comply with the rules.
“The division between administrative regions would increase theempty distance that taxi drivers cover, travelling back and forth from one areato the other without a passenger, since they are not allowed to pick up anyoneoutside their assigned region. This will push up sunk costs in operation andmonitoring, and lower competitiveness,” Binh said.
Another rule that the firms are not happy with will require allcommercial automobiles within Hanoi to have the same colour that will beannounced in 2018. Under the proposed rule, from 2019 to 2024, all new taxisoperating in the city will have to sport this colour, while the older modelsmust comply by the end of 2025.
Yet another rule that the city wants to impose is that commercialvehicles older than eight years are replaced with newer models to avoidmalfunction and pollution.
The DoT also proposes that from July 1, 2018, all vehicles forhire must use a support booking app, whose data will be taken from a meterplaced in the car and fed directly to the city’s central traffic monitorsystem.
Binh wondered if the cost of operating such a database would beborne by the city’s budget or by the firms themselves.
A representative from the Mai Linh Northern Corp, a subsidiary ofthe well known Mai Linh Group, said they do not expect all taxi firms to betreated alike.
Both the HTA and commercial taxi firms expressed worry about thepossible loss of identity with the use of the same colour across different taxibrands. Firms with a stable number of operating vehicles will find it difficultto replace older ones, and it would also be wasteful.
They also expressed concerns over the possible harm to their brandimage, and some of the lesser brands could piggyback on the reputation ofbigger ones. This carries the risk of impostor firms and the possibility ofpassengers being cheated, they said.
Bui Danh Lien, Chairman of the Hanoi Transport Association,also said that at the moment, Vietnamese taxi fleets were too disorganized andlacked the uniform look seen in developed countries. Furthermore, he argued,since taxi firms operate as conditional businesses, they have to be subject toState regulations no matter what.-VNA
VNA
