Ride-hailing licence cap ‘must strike a balance’ in Hong Kong, John Lee says

The number of ride-hailing vehicle licences will be determined based on Hong Kong’s unique conditions and the need to maintain passenger experience, the city’s leader has said, adding that the proposed subsidiary legislation will be submitted for approval on schedule. Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu also said on Tuesday that a mechanism would be established to monitor market operations and data, as well as to conduct dynamic assessments and reviews of quotas. His remarks were made after authorities revealed details of the regulatory framework last week, but did not specify a cap on the number of vehicles to be approved for the service. Ride-hailing platform Uber warned that a cap of 15,000 vehicles would lead to higher fares and more unsuccessful ride requests, while some taxi groups said even a few thousand licences would be unacceptable. Speaking to the press before his weekly Executive Council meeting, Lee said the cap should strike a balance among several factors. “First, address public travel needs so that the riding experience remains more or less the same,” he said. He pointed to the city’s unique transport landscape as the second factor, including road capacity and the fact that nearly 90 per cent of trips are made using public transport, with the need for ongoing, dynamic assessments of quota levels as the third factor. “The government’s objective in establishing a regulatory regime for ride-hailing services is to ensure they operate within a lawful, appropriate and safe framework, while fostering healthy competition and complementarity between taxis and ride-hailing services, thereby enhancing the overall quality of point-to-point transport,” he said. Lee also said the Transport and Logistics Bureau had been gathering views from stakeholders to finalise implementation details for the initial phase of the framework. He added that subsidiary legislation would be submitted to the Legislative Council in the first half of the year, earlier than the previously expected mid-July deadline. Currently, only private cars with hire-car permits can provide paid services in Hong Kong, but ride-hailing platforms such as Uber, Didi Chuxing and Amap have operated in a regulatory grey area over the past decade. Amap is operated by Alibaba Group Holding, the owner of the South China Morning Post. In October, the Legco passed a bill to regulate the sector, requiring platforms, vehicles and drivers to obtain licences. The law also stipulates that the number of approved vehicles should be controlled. Authorities are expected to invite applications for licences in the third or fourth quarter of this year, but have yet to set a cap on numbers. On Monday, Professor Wong Sze-chun, chairman of the Transport Advisory Committee, said he expected the cap on licensed vehicles to be “somewhere around 10,000”.