Mu-Heng Wang

Hello everyone, I am Mu-Heng Wang (王穆衡) from the Department of Railways and Highways, Ministry of Transportation and Communications. Because I come from the MOTC, you probably know that I will represent the official position in giving some remarks later.

However, I feel the true purpose of coming today is not limited to stating official views. In fact, I think coming here allows us to listen as well. Especially under the concept of the "sharing economy," I also want to learn from everyone.

Under the trend of this wave, a certain conflict may arise between our government regulations and the direction of new technology. I feel that in this process, conflict is not something to evade. Instead, we can exchange experiences with one another in the process, allowing us to grow further.

Due to time arrangements, I from the MOTC will go first and make a response.

Thank you to vTaiwan for disclosing the opinions. Department colleagues have also organized their views on the content of these issues.

We will discuss this in a comparative manner.

Let's first talk about the taxi industry. It is an ancient industry; similar services have existed since the days of rickshaws. For human society, this has existed for a very long time, and naturally has its history and evolution.

In our country, it is a regulated industry. Total quantity is regulated, prices must be regulated, total volume must be regulated. From another angle, two strangers coming together in a small space means there are safety considerations. The identity of people engaged in this profession must be vetted; not anyone can do it.

However, the law protects everyone's right to employment, so there is a trend toward relaxation.

In addition, both the vehicle and the person must have clear markings. If an unfortunate incident occurs, these things can be used to find the location and place. This is roughly the background of explicit markings for drivers in various countries.

To tell everyone, as long as this industry exists, unmetered illegal taxis exist. At major airport terminals and stations, there will be people touting and soliciting passengers.

Why do conflicts arise? The government feels that to maintain market order, it needs to have certain regulations for people and vehicles.

Because unmetered illegal taxis operate spontaneously, nobody constrains them. When disputes arise, prices are unreasonable, or people have emotional conflicts, it cannot be handled. Therefore, people report being harmed, and various countries manage it based on this. When someone gets hurt because of it, it must be addressed.

Uber says it has high-grade cars, so it wants to provide better service rather than taxis. But from the system I just mentioned, it becomes high-grade unmetered illegal taxis. Let me clarify this point here.

We won't say much here about which countries have opened up and which haven't; my data might not be as clear as yours (STLI's).

Looking inside, one sentence is very important. I study transportation. Among those that have passed, the vast majority of countries are in a state where supply is less than demand. Taxi income and standards in these countries are relatively above middle-to-high, because with advantages and strong market protection, these people's income will be relatively higher, and supply during peak hours will be relatively insufficient. Uber attempts to adjust to that.

Is there a way, while doing these things as we just mentioned, to elevate our service? These countries allowed them to enter service because of this.

Our country has recorded income statistics over the years. What we know about the taxi-driver community is that they belong to our country's low-income group, averaging around NT$20,000-plus. Although it could be underreported, at least according to current surveys, they belong to low income.

In urban areas, taxis in Taiwan have experienced over-saturation, where supply exceeds demand. So under this background, it's not a matter of a single regulation accepting or not accepting it; there is also the broader macro-environment there. This is something everyone should reference during discussions.

Let's discuss from three aspects. First, sharing economy: what is carpooling?

The concept of carpooling is that I originally intended to go to a certain location and had this space, and through matching we travel together, sharing expenses and splitting costs mutually. We know that Uber right now is not like this. It's not that the driver personally wants to go there, but rather specially assigned to a driver for someone else's need. From our perspective, this is taxi demand.

No research has yet proven that this group of Uber passengers is distinctly different from taxi passengers, but looking from the demand side, we consider it to be a similar demand to taxis.

The reason Uber finds it difficult to enter other countries is strong labor groups—when they feel damage is caused, they will jump out and shout about damage. Our country has relatively less of this situation. Regulations like those in California are currently under trial; they consider themselves—I am not a legal expert and won't debate this. But the key is whether the platform bears joint legal liability. Currently, such a state seems to have no joint connection in Uber. This is very crude, because sharing economy is not my specialty; this is my attempt to interpret the sharing economy using my professional background.

This is the situation we see now: prices are uniformly determined by Uber. Educational requirements are conducted by Uber, dispatching is conducted by Uber. We feel this is substantive business operations. From driver to payment, it is an organized system; we consider this to be business operations. It's not like housing rental sites, which are just platforms for free listing. Uber might have a different view later, but I am speaking about this matter from what I know.

I have also heard about flexible employment. To attend the meeting, I also searched sharing economy. Our corresponding industry behaviors are all consistent: this is an industry. Looking around the world, this is a fixed industry operating with licenses. Into this concept of fixed jobs come part-time people under over-saturated conditions. Everyone can imagine: in a fixed consumer market, when excessive competitors enter, demand becomes dispersed.

On the other hand, it harms opportunities for fixed-employment workers. In a so-called blue ocean or red ocean market, if one day everyone feels they are working part-time, things will move toward a cheaper perspective. It will allow full-time industries to be eaten away by part-time industries.

Reducing waste of social resources: I believe this exists. But the corresponding other side is full-time professions; full-time utilization rates will become lower. Although individual utilization rates increase, in the market it harms long-term professional utilization rates. This cannot be viewed in isolation.

This is a discussion across countries globally. Many countries attach great importance to the sharing economy, the Executive Yuan also attaches great importance, and many regulations are being learned. The EU, various countries, and Mainland China also classify this item as competition violating current regulations.

We do not believe this is protecting vested interests. We cannot generically call the taxi industry vested interests; this industry is currently still open. Vehicles are regulated, but you can join. Anyone can still join this industry at any time; we should not view this confrontationally.

We very much welcome interested people coming in to tune and refine this group of participants, elevating their quality and management—we welcome that very much. But we hope they operate under orderly conditions.

Just as netizens mentioned, what Uber brings is not necessarily bad, and taxis also have points that are not good, which we admit. We need to find ways to let those willing to contribute receive better and more reasonable rewards. This is also the direction of high-grade taxis currently being discussed. It's not a one-size-fits-all, everyone-eats-from-the-same-pot concept; the government is currently doing this.

Regarding so-called conservative regulations and technology, Singapore also revised its regulations in this process, drawing heavily upon them as well. Look closely, everyone: the wording appearing in these regulations is precisely the environment of taxi passenger transport services that already exists in Taiwan. Taiwan has already designed a set of laws for this industry within an established environment, and it is an open field; it is a platform, and the people it manages have restrictions—namely, professional licenses. It's not that our regulations are falling behind; these are the regulations that countries around the world are now moving toward.

We won't use safety issues as a talking point. We want to address what we haven't improved, rather than talk about what others haven't done well.

However, to address why we have different conditions for people versus vehicles: although dangerous events can still occur even with these, if we didn't even have these, how many more events would occur?

Without taking up more time, I will stop here for now.

First, the judgment made by the MOTC is targeted at the "clearly illegal" part—that is, operating without a business license, soliciting passengers, or setting prices independently. This point is very explicit. With clear facts and existing laws, I have no authority to say I will not handle this matter.

Second, after Uber entered Taiwan, we maintained an open attitude. We said that Taiwan has different licenses among various countries—namely, the taxi passenger service industry—but the object of management and guidance is the taxi-driver community. But from open contact until now, indeed partner friends on the opposite side have contacted me many times, but not once has there been a formal application action with us. I haven't even received an investigation request or application, yet we have tried our best to make requests for these matters.

For example, whether tax has been paid on these things? For example, when we asked about legal items registered with the Ministry of Economic Affairs, whether there was a single item for transportation services? These things were our investigation, but the response we received was "none."

Therefore, regarding the investigation into this matter, based on the status of applying for permits at the time and the social relationships existing in fact, we performed clear verification. We did not conduct so-called logical or legal theory debates. "Whether this is sharing economy" was not within the scope, but we investigated the credit card portion first to see whether it complies with domestic safety guarantees.

For example, personal privacy protection: credit cards must enter membership and complete data must be provided, yet this falls outside jurisdictional scope. I say this is a virtual competent authority, so under this scenario, we believe there is no explicit guarantee for our citizens. I think we have no room for ambiguity, so I answer this part first.

Of course, let me emphasize: perhaps we are learning many things. From the consumer's perspective, what they care about should be service quality and image, which is Uber's strength: screening members, requiring members to abide by rules, or consistent standards—but these standards do not lie in personal identity.

If these are transferred to taxi friends: we first have 86,000 taxi friends. Not all of these people wish to be managed, but some hope to be guided properly toward joint entrepreneurship; this also exists.

Therefore, we say we hope to maintain an open and welcoming attitude, hoping they can enter this industry. From the government's perspective, we will not protect a specific company's TITLE; we absolutely respect market order.

Yes.