Officials use data to bust cheating cabbies

Law enforcement officials from Shanghai's transportation commission have long been trying to crack down on law-breaking taxi drivers. But due to insufficient manpower and lack of effective means to track drivers, many get away without punishment when they cheat or trick passengers.

Since earlier this month, officers have started to cross-check complaints made by passengers and the city's official supervisory database to locate and punish drivers who rip off their passengers.

For instance, officers recently noticed that a taxi with plate number HW5205 had received multiple complaints since September. They looked into GPS tracking records of the taxi and soon found something unusual.

The distance of several trips made by the taxi according to the driver’s meters were noticeably longer than what the GPS tracker indicated.

In one trip where the taxi picked up a passenger from the Pudong International Airport and traveled to Changxing Island in Chongming District on September 11, the GPS showed it as a 55.7-kilometer trip, but the meter’s reading was 66.7 kilometers.

The driver, surnamed Zhang, after the officers brought him in, confessed that he planted a small device inside the meter. Every time he shifted gears, the device would add distance to the meter so that he could charge a higher fare.

Zhang’s certificate to drive a taxi was stripped by officers.

In September, the law enforcement department called on 21 major taxi firms in the city, commanding them to do inspections of meters, GPS systems and the complaint record of their taxis.

The officers told Shanghai Daily that, according to cross-checked data, they are making a list of drivers whose metered trip distances don’t match with GPS records. Those who cheat passengers will be weeded out.