Taxi service quality and ‘ride-hailing’ debated

Last week’s Central District Community Advisory Board meeting debated the quality of the Macau’s taxi services and the need for a “ride-hailing service.”

Member António Monteiro raised the topic during the monthly advisory council meeting, calling for significant improvements to taxi services, especially enabling easier access for those who do not speak Chinese.

Noting it is unacceptable that after many years of discussion on the same problem, there are no real proposals to change the system. Monteiro said that with Macau’s desire to attract more foreign visitors, the problem only continues to grow, and is likely to severely damage Macau’s reputation as a tourism destination.

He suggested that taxi services develop a “single and efficient application where you can book a taxi in real-time (with real-time identification of where the taxi is and when it arrives at the passenger’s destination),” as is already the case in many countries, including China.

He said this application should be in Chinese, English and Portuguese to facilitate its use by tourists or residents, adding that this would particularly benefit the development of tourism in the old neighborhoods.

Another suggestion includes the differentiation among taxis (by color) to indicate those that can provide a service to a broader audience (namely tourists).

According to Monteiro, this would need to be complemented with proper driver training to understand at least basic English, such as names of locations, hotels, and restaurants.

Also contributing to the disruptive nature of the service is the fact that taxis often stop to pick up and drop off passengers at unofficial locations. This contributes to a lack of understanding about where to hail a taxi and it creates traffic jams and road-related disputes.

The situation is even more problematic during typhoons, with taxi drivers ignoring the law, requesting higher fares and breaching other laws such as refusing transportation or selecting passengers according to the destination.

The same topic has been raised on several occasions and more recently by several scholars and researchers as well as experts from the tourism sector.

However, none of the recommendations seem to have been heard by Transport Bureau officials who plan to release a tender for up to 500 soon-to-expire taxi licenses under same conditions as existing licenses.

The ride-hailing service for taxis has been systematically rejected by the industry, with leaders of the taxi drivers’ associations claiming that, contrary to public opinion, the service is unnecessary. The same groups have been historically against the issuance of more taxi licenses by the government, claiming it would directly impact taxi drivers’ income.