Local political advisors urged the authorities to cut down on the startling number of empty seats in taxis as Beijing's traffic became a hot topic at the ongoing legislative session.

They said the government should reduce "deadhead kilometers" - a term used to describe the distance taxis travel with no passengers on board.

And they called for better management of the city's fleet of 67,000 taxis to help free up Beijing's traffic gridlock.

Gao Yang, a city planning engineer and member of the Beijing municipal committee of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said the city has not been making good use of its taxis.

Beijing recently rolled out a series of controversial measures to ease its notorious traffic problem. The measures included restricting car purchases, hiking parking fees and continuing with so-called no-car day restrictions.

However, the traffic management measures did not mention the operation of Beijing's taxis.

"The number of empty taxis running on the road is another burden for Beijing's streets," said Gao, who is assistant to the director of the Beijing Municipal Institute of City Planning and Design. He was speaking during group discussions at the legislative session that started on Jan 14.

Statistics from transportation authorities have shown that at least 40 percent of the city's 67,000 taxis do not have passengers at any given time. The empty taxi rate rises to as high as 60 percent in the evening.

Yu Kai, one of Beijing's 100,000 taxi drivers and also an advisor to the meeting, agreed.

"Technically speaking, the city is able to allocate taxis citywide, but passengers have long been accustomed to waiting at the roadside," Yu said.

The number of taxis in Beijing has not increased in recent years because of a ceiling on the number of taxi licenses.

The random use of taxis is believed to have contributed to the deadhead kilometers. Because of this, some parts of the city has abundant empty taxis while would-be passengers can't get a ride in other areas.

To solve the problem, advisors suggested that the authorities build convenient taxi stops in populated areas to attract more passengers. They also said the authorities should set up a unified system among the different taxi operators citywide, so they can work together on allocating taxis.

"With the same positioning system and the same taxi reservation system, the taxi resources in the city could be much better used," Gao told the meeting.

However, he did not explain in detail how the 10-plus taxi operators in Beijing might be encouraged to work together. The companies include both State-owned and private operators.

Advisors also urged the transportation authorities to improve the function of the city's transit cards, so passengers can use them to pay taxi fares as well as fares on buses and the subway.

(China Daily January 17, 2011)