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| The rapid increase in the number of taxis has contributed to traffic congestion and management difficulties for HCM City authorities. |
HCM CITY — The HCM City Department of Transport has asked for a revision of a taxi development plan to limit the number of taxis in HCM City up to 2025.
The original plan called for a limit of 16,520 vehicles by 2025, but the city, as of the end of last year, had nearly 35,000 traditional and app-based taxis with nine seats or below on the roads.
There are 11,000 traditional taxis operating in the city, while the number of Grab cars totals 21,050.
As of the end of last year, the number of taxi enterprises had fallen from 36 in 2010 to 21, while the number of traditional taxi vehicles had dropped from 12,654 to 9,605.
Under the original plan, the total number of traditional and app-based taxis would have been limited to 14,460 by 2020 and 16,520 by 2025.
However, since the approval of Ministry of Transport’s pilot app-based taxi project in 2015, the number of newly registered cars of nine seats or below has increased greatly since early 2016, according to the Transport Department.
As of the end of 2015, the city had only 200-300 traditional taxis running under long-haul contracts (longer trips to other provinces and cities), but the number of long-haul taxis soared to 2,437 in early 2016 when a pilot app-based taxi service began.
The recent increase in the number of cars used by app-based taxi services has worsened traffic congestion, according to experts. — Khanh
