Motorcycle taxis see need for speed
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If you visit Hefei, capital of Anhui province, don't be surprised if you see an elegantly dressed woman on the back of a dilapidated motorcycle ridden by a bruiser. Very likely, she just could not get a cab.
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A motorcycle taxi takes a passenger along Linquan Road, one of the busiest streets in Hefei, capital of Anhui province. These unofficial taxis are popular because they can zip between all the cars stuck in traffic. |
Traffic congestion is well documented in first-tier cities such as Beijing, where the average commute from home to work takes 52 minutes.
It is only 28 minutes in second-tier Hefei, but when cabs are stuck in traffic, people who need to get somewhere quickly are stymied.
Enter the freelance motorcycle taxi, which can zip between cars idling in the clogged traffic lanes.
Lu Yu, a teacher from Bengbu, also in Anhui province, discovered this late last year when he was on a short business trip to Hefei.
He could not find a cab to take him from Hefei University of Technology to his hotel. All the ones he saw were occupied, but motorcyclists kept passing him, asking whether he needed a ride.
"No, I'd rather take a taxi," he said. "You won't catch one!" one motorcyclist shouted.
"Twenty minutes later, I realized that he might be right," Lu said. And so he took his only choice for a ride to the hotel.
He was scared. The motorcycle was "crazily speeding" in the rain, he said, and ignored several red traffic lights - both common complaints about motorcyclists. Then he was startled to pay the same fare as he would have for a standard cab.
"We charge the price for a good reason," said Han Rui, a 29-year-old motorcyclist who carries passengers every day to earn a living. "Taxis are clearly more comfortable, but they are hard to catch. Part of the reason is that many are stuck in traffic.
"If you are in a rush, you'd better go with us," he said. "Taxis can easily get trapped in a traffic jam, which is very common in the city. We, however, can shuttle along easily despite the long line of cars."
Nobody knows how many of Hefei's 49,707 motorcycles do taxi duty. They are not registered differently from private-use motorcycles, and are not marked. The cost of the service is usually negotiated before the trip starts - there is no meter, as on standard cabs - but the fares are comparable.
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