Why Hong Kong has a complicated relationship with taxi drivers

IT worker Kenny Tong now only take a cab about three times a month, preferring to avoid the ordeal where he can. To hail one, he says, he often has to “bow, wait for the driver to lower the car window” and check if his destination is on the driver’s route for the day.

“Some taxi drivers grumble throughout the journey after I have boarded,” he adds.

He also finds it frustrating when drivers do not use GPS and ask him how to reach the destination – even though they have “multiple phones on the dashboard”.

Most disgruntled passengers do not file complaints because it’s time-consuming. Still, there there were about 11,500 complaints last year – a 11% increase from 2019, according to the Transport Advisory Committee. Only a tiny fraction were prosecuted.

Then there is the problem of dishonest drivers – with tourists especially vulnerable.

In early July, a visitor from the China’s eastern province of Zhejiang took to social media to complain that she was only given HK$44 ($5.6; £4.5) in change after giving a cabbie HK$1,000 for a HK$56 ride. She reported the incident to the police, but couldn’t get her money back because of insufficient evidence.

But poor behaviour is only a symptom of the deeper issues that beset the city’s taxi industry, which is struggling with high costs, increased competition and bureaucracy.

There are about 18,000 taxi licenses in the city, and this number has been largely capped since 1994, apart from 2016 when just 25 licenses were issued. Many holders see the licenses as an investment and rent them to drivers.

Leung Tat Chong – who has worked as a taxi driver for more than two decades – says the rent of the licenses has kept rising and a driver has to pay about HK$500 for a 12-hour daytime shift – which does not include fuel. On a typical day, a driver can make HK$500 to HK$800.

“We can only do more business during rush hours, and sometimes we wait for up to 25 minutes and there is not even one single passenger,” he says. “To make a living, some drivers are not as patient and they have no capacity to improve their services.”

This is not an excuse for poor behaviour, he adds, but the “reality” of the industry.

Taxis also face intense competition from Uber which has been hugely popular since its entry into the Hong Kong market in 2014. The company says half of the city’s 7.5 million population have used it at least once.

The taxi industry has called on the government to crack down on the platform, which remains officially illegal in the city, arguing that it is unfair because Uber drivers are not subjected to the same laws – including needing special licences to run.