By Kim Se-jeong
The Seoul Metropolitan Government is considering a taxi fare hike later this year to raise the income of drivers.
But the envisioned move will likely face protest from passengers, many of whom say the current fare is already high.
Seoul has almost 72,000 taxis registered to run. Among them, approximately 23,000, mostly orange taxis, belong to companies, while self-employed drivers own and operate the rest.
Drivers who operate company taxis are under contracts that have them pay the company between 130,000 to 150,000 won per day and keep approximately 1.3 million won as a wage every month in return. Additional earnings beyond the 130,000 won become theirs, but when earnings are less than 130,000 won, the company takes the shortfall out of their monthly wage.
According to the Seoul Metropolitan Government, the average amount taxi drivers take home every month is 2.13 million won. Given they work 12 hours a day six days a week, they earn 7,193 won per hour, under the 7,530 won minimum wage.
Acknowledging the problem, the city acted to fix it.
“A task force was launched in November to look into the issue until the end of March. They will make policy recommendations to the mayor,” a city official handling taxi policy said Monday.
The city views each driver should earn at least 500,000 won more per month to maintain a decent life in Seoul.
The current taxi fare starts from a base fare of 3,000 won with an additional 100 won for every additional 142 meters. Between midnight and 4 a.m. fares are 20 percent more expensive.
But this doesn’t seem to please many passengers who say the cost of taking a cab is already too high.
“Seoul is already an expensive city to live in. It will become more so,” a Mapo-gu resident with two children said.
The city official said a base fare increase is inevitable. “We anticipate the increase will be somewhere between 15 and 25 percent,” the official said, which will increase the base fare to between 3,900 and 4,500 won. The city also wants late-night fares to increase.
Taxi drivers oppose the base fare increase.
“A base fare increase will give companies motivation to collect more from me. That is not going to improve my life. The city needs to put the reins on the companies so they can’t take more than 130,000 won,” said Lee Kyo-seong, a taxi driver in Seoul.
The city said it was aware of the issue and looking for ways to pressure the companies. Currently, there’s little it can do because there’s no legal framework for dealing with the companies. “We’re looking to find legal ways to pressure the companies,” the official said.
The fare increase is likely to be implemented later this year, but the official dismissed it. “Nothing has been decided on the taxi fare increase yet,” he said.