Seoul to raise late-night taxi hailing fees to tackle nighttime taxi shortage

[Photo by Yonhap]

South Korea will increase late-night taxi hailing fees and introduce other incentives to resolve the late-night taxi shortage, the land ministry announced on Monday.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said the taxi hailing fees for the time between 10 pm and 3 am in Seoul and surrounding areas will be raised to a maximum of 5,000 won ($3.5) from the current 3,000 won, effective as early as the middle of this month. The government will also introduce part-time taxi driving to allow taxi drivers to work only during high-margin late-night hours, if they wish, while streamlining the job application procedures at a taxi company.

The measures are intended to address the dire shortage of taxi drivers who have fled to higher-paying delivery service sector during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many taxi drivers tend to avoid nighttime services as there is little difference against driving during the daytime.

The taxi hailing fees will be adjusted flexibly in times and districts according to demand. The new measures will be applied sequentially in the metropolitan area starting from the middle of this month until the end of the year.

Under the new system, passengers can choose to hail a taxi at higher cost or use call-free service.

The destination of the passenger paying the hailing fee will stayed disclosed to the taxi driver when accepting the call to prevent drivers from rejecting short ride, the ministry said.

[¨Ï Maeil Business Newspaper & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]