1.1 Purpose, Owner & Why the Test Exists

The Hong Kong Taxi Written Test is the Transport Department’s formal knowledge check for people who want a full driving licence entitlement to drive a taxi. It is not a learner theory paper for private cars, and it is not a road test. It is a commercial-vehicle written exam built around taxi operation law, local geography, and the same road-safety code every careful Hong Kong driver is expected to know—applied at professional standard.

Who Owns the Test

The Transport Department (TD) of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region designs, publishes, and runs the test. TD decides the syllabus, issues the official booklets, sets the written-test centre, collects the driving-test form fee, and records results against your commercial driving-test application.

On the exam and in this guide you will see three linked ideas that all belong to TD:

• Owner / administrator — Transport Department
• Legal backbone — Road Traffic Ordinance (Cap. 374) and subsidiary legislation, especially Cap. 374A (Road Traffic (Construction and Maintenance of Vehicles) Regulations) and Cap. 374D (Road Traffic (Public Service Vehicles) Regulations), whose relevant topics are extracted into the official booklet
• Study publications — the documents listed below, which TD posts on its website and updates by revision date

If a commercial website, coach, or practice bank conflicts with TD’s current PDFs, TD wins. Always re-check the latest Guide and booklet before test day.

Why the Test Exists

Hong Kong taxis carry strangers, luggage, tourists, night workers, and hospital patients across a dense road network. Passengers rely on the driver for safety, fair fares, and correct destinations. The written test exists to screen out applicants who cannot yet demonstrate three public-interest aims:

1. Safe professional driving — knowing the Road Users’ Code well enough to protect passengers, pedestrians, and other road users
2. Hong Kong location knowledge — recognizing major hospitals, hotels, tourist spots, government buildings, malls, estates, and campuses so passengers are not misled or driven aimlessly
3. Taxi-specific law and practice — taximeters, receipts, stands, for-hire duties, fares, baggage, lost property, Journey Recording Systems, and Taxi-Driver-Offence Points

These aims are why the paper is harder than a private-car theory quiz. Passing scores sit near 85%+ on each part, and both parts must be passed together in one sitting’s scoring rules (you cannot “carry over” a pass on only one part as a permanent half-licence).

Official Source Documents (Memorize These Names)

TD points candidates to a short official stack. Use the English titles exactly as TD markets them:

How to Use Each Source

• Read the Guide first so you understand who may sit, how to apply, how long the form lasts, and how scoring works.
• Study the Taxi Operation Booklet as your Part A textbook. Regulation wording, offence points, fare-scale structure, and the official location list live here.
• Study the Road Users’ Code as your Part B textbook. Do not assume private-car experience is enough; commercial drivers are expected to apply RUC rules under passenger-carrying pressure.

Two-Part Structure You Must Internalize

The official exam is one computerized sitting with 75 multiple-choice questions and 45 minutes total. Content is split into two scored parts:

Part A — Taxi Operation (40 questions)

Part A is the taxi specialty paper. TD’s published structure breaks it roughly as:

• About 30 questions on taxi regulations and operation (taximeter, receipts, JRS, stands, fares, baggage, conduct, TDOP, and related duties)
• 9 location questions drawn from the official landmark categories (hospitals, tourist spots, hotels, government sites, commercial buildings, shopping malls, residential areas, higher education, and similar)
• 1 route-planning question asking for a sensible, direct route under normal traffic conditions between named places

Pass mark: 34 or more correct out of 40 (you may miss at most 6).

Part B — Road Users’ Code (35 questions)

Part B checks general road knowledge and safe driving as set out in the Road Users’ Code. Topics include fitness to drive, speed and following distance, overtaking and lane discipline, junctions and priority, pedestrians and crossings, signs and markings, stopping and parking restrictions, weather and night driving, breakdowns and accidents, and professional-driver duties.

Pass mark: 30 or more correct out of 35 (you may miss at most 5).

Both Parts Required

A strong Part A score cannot rescue a weak Part B, and the reverse is also true. TD treats the two parts as independent thresholds. On test day you answer both within the single 45-minute clock; after scoring, you either meet both cut-offs or you fail the Taxi Written Test overall.

How This Guide Maps to the Syllabus

This study guide follows the same split TD uses:

• Early chapters teach application, eligibility, test logistics, and results
• Middle chapters teach Taxi Operation (equipment, stands, fares, passengers, TDOP, locations, routes)
• Later chapters teach Road Users’ Code topics at the depth commercial candidates need

When a later section quotes a rule, treat it as teaching from the Taxi Operation Booklet or Road Users’ Code unless it is clearly labelled as application logistics from the Guide.

Practical Mindset for Candidates

Taxi knowledge is operational, not decorative. Exam writers expect you to know what a driver must do—start the taximeter, print a receipt, accept hire at a stand, take the most direct practicable route, report lost property—not only to recognize the name of a regulation. Location items reward district memory, not vague tourism trivia. RUC items reward priority and safety choices, not memorizing chapter numbers alone.

If you only have limited study time, protect the three aims in order of failure risk:

1. Master Part A regulation mechanics (taximeter states, receipts, for-hire duties, TDOP thresholds)
2. Drill official locations and one route method
3. Cover RUC high-yield clusters (junctions, crossings, signs/markings, stopping restrictions, weather)

That sequence mirrors why TD built the test: lawful taxi operation first, local knowledge second, universal road safety always.