Taxi authorities are studying on the possibility to remove the transparent shields in Shanghai taxis and install global positioning systems for the same purpose of protecting drivers against crime.

The plan is to first test the GPS among a small number of cabs, according to Qiu Zhengzhen of the Shanghai Taxi Administration Office, regulator of the city's taxi industry. If the GPS proves to be as effective as the shields in protecting the cabbies, the plan will be carried out on a full scale.

With the new system being installed, the whole network will be linked to the police's 110 emergency hot line. When a robbery or a crime takes place, the nearest patrolmen will arrive at the spot within minutes.

The protective barriers, installed around the driver's seat in cabs, are a safeguard against robbers but they can be misleading for newcomers to the city, who wonder if there are too many local crimes, Qiu said.

Qiu's office has not set a timetable for installing the GPS on all of 46,000 local cabs, though it may possibly start next year.

The GPS is not just a positioning system, but a complete information platform which will provide a variety of services for cabbies.

Through the GPS, dispatchers can know about the layout of cabs running in Shanghai at anytime and cater to passengers' demands.

"It'll largely raise the utility of cabs as cabbies will no longer need to ride around aimlessly, looking for passengers," said Qiu. "For instance, we can tell them that railway stations are in great need of taxis."

Cabbies will also be able to know all traffic related information like logjams on roads across the city, which will save time for passengers.

Taxi drivers seem happy about the shield removal, saying the barriers caused harm to their health in the long-term.

"Passengers want cool air in summer, but the cold wind from the airconditioner is blocked by the shield. So I have to turn up the machine, leaving my right arm exposed to the cold gust all day long," said cabbie Ding Guoping.

Ding, 45, thought the shield is nothing but a waste. But taxi operators and police could not agree with him.

"The shields make many kinds of robberies impossible. For instance, criminals are unable to strangle the driver from behind or use a knife to threaten cabbies," said Fang Dinghua, spokeswoman of the Shanghai Public Security Bureau.

She worried "the GPS may not be able to immediately stop crimes on the spot."

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