Taxis halt service due to meter failure in E China

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-08-08 19:29

HANGZHOU - About 1,100 taxis in an eastern China city had to stop business due to the failure of their meters early on Friday, according to the government.

From midnight on Friday, the meters of around 1,100 taxis in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang Province, failed to price travel lengths at the same time and had to halt service, the city government said.

Pang Rongkun, the city's quality inspection bureau chief, said technicians had initially blamed the incident on a fee register chip virus which led to the system failure.

The exact cause was still being investigated.

The meter were produced by Shanghai Liangbiao Technology Terminal Co, Ltd. A 10-member team dispatched by the company had arrived in Hangzhou to help with the repair.

From 3:30 am to 3 pm, workers had restored the normal operation of meters on 700 taxis. The restoration of the rest would be completed late on Friday.

Each taxi could get a compensation of 50 yuan (US$7.2) per hour during the service suspension period, according to the Hangzhou city government.