Taxies are waiting for passengers near Seoul Station, Wednesday. Yonhap



By Kim Jae-heun



The base fare for a taxi in Seoul is likely to increase by 1,000 won (90 cents) to 4,000 won next year, while the nighttime surcharge will begin one hour earlier at 11 p.m.



A consultative body, consisting of experts, residents, labor and management, held a general meeting Tuesday to finalize this plan and report it to the Seoul Metropolitan Government.



"The consultative body made its proposal to improve taxi drivers' working conditions to a level that satisfies next year's living wage decided on by the city government," said a Seoul city official.



"However, we have yet to make a final decision at this point."



The local government fixed next year's "living wage" at 10,148 won per hour, a 10.2 percent increase from this year.



The taxi consultative body said that transportation fares should also be raised to this level. Taxi drivers could earn a monthly salary of 2.85 million won if the minimum taxi fare is fixed to 4,000 won.



Taxi fares in Seoul have been frozen at 3,000 won for five years since it was raised by 600 won from 2,400 won in October 2013.



The city government has been discussing two ways to increase taxi drivers' income directly.



The first option was to hike the base taxi fare by 25 percent to 4,500 won. The second offered raising the base fare by 15 percent to 3,900 won, while freezing the percentage of taxi drivers' daily earnings they have to pay the companies they work for.



Drivers who work for taxi companies have to pay between 130,000 to 150,000 won a day to the company, while receiving 1.3 million won as a base monthly wage. They pocket any money earned above the 130,000 to 150,000 won.



Last month, the SMG and the taxi companies agreed to freeze the daily money taxi drivers have to pay the latter for six months even if the fare is raised.



The city government fixes base fares and nighttime surcharges.



The final decision will be made after it listens to opinions of citizens, as well as discussions with city council committees.



Meanwhile, the city government is also preparing a new system to punish taxi drivers for refusing to take passengers.



Many passengers have been opposed to increasing the taxi fare because of the poor services they receive. Taxi drivers have been under pressure for refusing to accept passengers who want to take short trips.

