Special taxis taking to the road on April 1

The city’s special taxi (on-call taxi) licence concessionaire – Radio Taxi Macau Taxi Service Ltd, – will start its operation from April 1 next year, reveals its contract with the Transport Bureau published yesterday in the Official Gazette.  The contract also regulates the company’s minimum answer rate of phone booking, in addition to the minimum number of taxis in operation.
According to the contract, the company’s service hotline will have to respond to no less than 80 per cent of phone bookings within each 30 seconds, whilst the rate of minimum taxis in operation is set at between 70 per cent and 80 per cent of the total number of vehicles it has, with the rate reduced to 40 per cent at night time.
The company will be fined MOP50,000 (US$6,250) for violating either regulation.
Radio Taxi will also have to provide a 24-hour service line in Cantonese, Mandarin, English and Portuguese; and allow users to pay using cash, credit card or electronic payments such as Macau Pass.
The licence allows the company to run 100 special taxis in the city, with the first batch of 50 special taxis available in the first half of next year. These special taxis can only be hailed by telephone, online order or via mobile phone application.
According to the contract, the company will be able to charge for ordering a ride and booking a ride in addition to imposing a no-show charge, although Radio Taxi Macau proposed in its public tender bid that it would only charge MOP5 for ordering a ride but no no-show fee.
The concession holder will be able to propose a change in the charge amount or propose alternative charges, after two years of commencing operations.
The concession will be valid for eight years starting from April 1.