Getting a taxi in Shanghai

Getting a taxi in Shanghai is – still – pretty easy (I suppose there will some problems next year with the Expo). At the moment there are 50000 taxi in town, operated by 180 companies. Only during rush hours (8.30-9.30, 17.30-18.30) you may have some difficulties to get a free one, but you could cope with this reserving a taxi phoning directly the company (the telephone number is written on the side of the car). Someone says that it is better not to take the red, the purple and the black taxi as they have higher prices and the service is not so good. Well, I do not know it this is true as I couldn’t notice any difference between the colors. Maybe the interiors of the black taxi where not so fine, but for the short trip I think that one can cope with this. The only suggestion that I can give you is that if the taxi driver is a bad driver you should better ask him to stop by saying 请这里停 qǐng zhè lǐ tíng and take another taxi. Some people have lost their lives in taxi cabs in Shanghai.