SOME residents have complained that green cabs near the Shenzhen airport and railway stations have been ripping off passengers with tampered taximeters, according to a local TV news program.

    A reporter from the TV program took a green cab to Xixiang People’s Hospital in Bao’an District from Shenzhen International Airport at around 4 p.m. on Sunday. The navigation app on the reporter’s smartphone showed that it was an 11.2-kilometer trip, which should take 15 minutes and cost around 30 yuan (US$4.36) when traffic is smooth.

    However, after the cab had been on the road for about 2 kilometers, the taximeter showed that the fare had soared from the starting fare of 6 yuan to 13 yuan.

    The reporter noticed that the driver had taken the shortest route for the trip and there weren’t any traffic jams, but when they arrived at Xixiang People’s Hospital the taximeter showed that the fare was 64.8 yuan.

    Although the driver didn’t take a detour, the invoice issued by the cabbie showed that the distance of the trip was 23.26 kilometers, almost twice the distance shown on the navigation app.

    Later the reporter took another green taxi to return to the airport from the hospital. Even though the driver chose the same route and traffic was the same, the trip cost the reporter 66 yuan and the invoice showed that the distance was 23.71 kilometers, according to the report.

    To make a comparison, the reporter took a blue electric cab from the hospital to the airport. The starting fare of a blue cab was 10 yuan and the cab waited for two and a half minutes on the road because of traffic lights and slow-moving traffic, but the trip only cost 37.6 yuan and the invoice showed that the distance was 12.5 kilometers.

    The reporter made complaints against these two green cabs to the city’s transport commission for ripping off passengers, but the report didn’t mention how the commission replied. According to the report, it takes 10 work days for authorities to handle such complaints, which would be too time-consuming for travelers who aren’t staying long in Shenzhen.

    According to previous reports on the TV program, there were also some cabbies at Shenzhen North Railway Station who refused to take passengers or overcharged passengers by not using their taximeters at all. The taxi company punished the involved drivers after the news was aired.

    (Zhang Yang)