Vinyl taxi seat covers defended

Shanghai Transportation Trade Association Thursday defended the move to replace some 10,000 of the city's cab seats with vinyl leather, replacing worn-out cloth covers, after an online survey said that 70 percent of respondents believed the new covers were not hygienic for customers.

Some 69 percent of respondents said that the new vinyl leather seats are not properly cleaned, while roughly 12 percent said that the cleaning should be supervised, the online survey conducted by local media that had some 400 participants showed Thursday.

The complaints follow the city's approval last year for taxi companies to replace old white-cloth seat covers with vinyl ones for environmental and economic reasons.

Only some 2 percent of complaints to the city's transportation hot line in the last year have pertained to dirty vinyl cab seats, said Shi Jingming, secretary of taxi association.

"A fifth of the city's 50,000 cabs use the grey PVC leather seat covers, and most passengers and drivers support this," he told the Global Times Thursday. "They save the city water and money since they're easier to clean, so they're a wise investment both environmentally and economically."

In fact, the vinyl covers have been so well-received that cab companies plan to switch the city's remaining 40,000 cabs to vinyl once the rest of the cloth covers wear out, said Shi.