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.