The Guangzhou traffic authority issued to the taxi enterprises the Circular on Strengthening the Standardized Management of Taxi-driver Shifts in Guangzhou, which stipulates that starting from November 1st, 2007, all the taxis in Guangzhou will practice a cross peak shifting system. Taxi-drivers are not allowed to take shifts during the morning and evening peak periods from 07:30 to 09:00 in the morning and from 17:30 to 19:30 in the evening.

Any taxi driver refusing a passenger or banishing a passenger midway for the sake of shifting shall be suspended for 3 days to learn the rules and receive serious punishment.

There are about 17,000 taxies in Guangzhou. (Guangzhou Daily photo)

The Circular demands that the taxis during shifting process must have the "Service Suspended" signboard over the "Empty" service signs over the taxi price counter and show it outward; in the case of call service and reservation service, the "For Call Service" signboard shall be placed over the taxi price counter and shown outward, but the "Service Suspended" signboard shall not be used.

In order to avoid the work peak time, the Guangjun, Baiyun and Guangjiao companies have already asked their taxi-drivers to take shifts during the off-peak time. However, a majority of the taxi companies have not worked out strict regulations for the shifting.