AN ANALYSIS FOR BUSINESS CONDITION OF SMALL AND MEDIUM-SIZED TAXI COMPANIES IN LOCAL AREAS OF JAPAN : SITUATION UNDER COVID-19 CRISIS AND ROLE OF TAXI SUBSIDY SCHEME

Taxi is an important means of transportation that forms local public transportation. However, the declining trend of users in the long-term did not change, in addition to this, taxi business is facing various challenges increasingly during the COVID-19 crisis. In this paper, a survey was conducted to examine the actual condition and perspectives of small and medium sized taxi companies in whole Japan, impact of COVID-19 crisis on business management and the role of Taxi Subsidy Scheme (TSS). As a result, more than 50% of companies are facing the 60% drop on business sale compared to last year caused by the pandemic. As a role of Taxi Subsidy Scheme (TSS) on taxi business, about half of the companies said that TSS is an important service content, especially with small and medium sized companies, and by quantitative analysis of the business sale, we found that TSS has significant effect on the sale for taxi companies with 6 to 10 vehicles