Analysis on Economy Factors for Choosing Taxi's Types

This paper is concerned with a debatable policy of choosing taxi types. Now prevalent in many urban transportation management departments, such a policy strongly favors automobiles of large displacement and rejects those of small displacement. Despite the joint policy of six national ministries and commissions that all restrictions on energy-saving environment-friendly automobiles of small displacement should be cancelled, a few cities still adopt a soft "forced-out" policy against the small-displacement taxis. Sometimes justified on the thin ground of improving the city's outlook, those policy often disregarded the local development of economy and the capability of local market. In choosing the taxi type, instead of focusing solely on a city's outlook,we argue for a policy-making strategy based on analysis of the economic factors such as fuel consumption, depreciation, comfort level and exhaust emission. Grounded on a comprehensive survey of passenger trip characteristics, our strategy would be sensitive to the market condition. As a basic guideline for policy-making, we argue that energy preservation, environmental protection and improvement of the city's outlook should be considered in descending priorities.