Recently, the General Office of the Ministry of Transport ("MOT") has issued the Administrative Regulations for the Safety of Road Passenger Transport Enterprises (Draft for Comment) (the "Draft for Comment") to solicit opinions from the entities concerned by November 27, 2017.
The Draft for Comment introduces major amendments in five respects as follows. The first is further improving the safety management system for enterprises, adding requirements on the work safety risk management. The second is strengthening management of drivers engaged in passenger transport, passenger service vehicles, and dynamic monitoring, adding new provisions that enterprises may entrust third-party monitoring agencies to implement the monitoring work. Third, administration of the safety in key areas is reinforced under new provisions, for example, stating that "enterprises offering customized services for road passenger transportation shall have obtained the business qualification for road passenger transportation", when it comes to the internet-based customized passenger transport. Fourth, the Draft for Comment stresses the application of technologies, stipulating that passenger transport enterprises shall have passenger vehicles equipped with video monitoring devices and let them work normally and adopt other technical approaches for the monitoring and management purposes. The fifth is reducing operating costs of small and micro enterprises by removing requirements regarding the vehicle dispatch sheet system and the management of business operations by affiliation.