4.3 Capacity Plates & General Taxi Appearance

4.3 Capacity Plates & General Taxi Appearance

Quick Answer: A taxi's maximum passenger seating capacity is six. It must display front and rear capacity plates indelibly coloured white on green showing the seating capacity as in the registration document, in the form and dimensions prescribed by the Commissioner. That capacity feeds hire duties: within other laws, you must take passengers up to the licensed number if the hirer requires. General taxis follow the roof-sign / bilingual marking / plate package; fleet taxis add fleet identity rules taught later.

Passengers, enforcement officers, and other road users need a fixed answer to "how many people may this taxi carry?" Hong Kong law answers with a hard maximum, a plated display, and a link to refuse-hire and passenger-count obligations you will meet again in the conduct chapters.

Maximum Passenger Seating Capacity: Six

The maximum passenger seating capacity of a taxi is six.

That sentence is pure exam gold. Distractors often offer four, five, or seven seats, or confuse passenger capacity with total persons including the driver. For Written Test purposes, lock onto six as the maximum passenger seating capacity of a taxi under the Operation Booklet framing.

Implications:

• A taxi is not a mini-bus substitute for eight or more seated passengers.
• Marketing claims like "we can squeeze seven" do not override the legal maximum.
• When a question asks for the maximum seating capacity, answer six unless the item is clearly about a different vehicle class.

Capacity Plates: Front and Rear, White on Green

The taxi must display capacity plates at the front and the back (front and rear of the vehicle). Plate rules from the Booklet:

"Indelibly coloured"

Indelible means the colouring is permanent in character — not a temporary sticker that peels off after a wash, and not chalk or marker that can be wiped to invent a different capacity. Exam language may contrast indelible prescribed plates with homemade paper notices.

White on green

Memorise the colour pair as white on green. Reverse colour distractors (green on white, white on red, black on yellow) are common. Keep this separate from other taxi colours you may know socially (for example traditional body liveries); here the tested object is the capacity plate colour scheme.

Match the registration document

The number on the plate is not the owner's preferred marketing capacity. It must show the seating capacity as in the registration document. If registration says a certain licensed passenger capacity (within the taxi maximum framework), the plates must agree. Mismatch between plate and registration is a compliance failure even if both numbers are "small."

Commissioner-prescribed form and dimensions

As with roof signs and meters, form and dimensions of the capacity plate are prescribed by the Commissioner. Owners do not freestyle plate shape for brand identity. On the exam, "any size plate is fine if the number is correct" is incomplete — presentation follows the Commissioner's prescription.

Connecting Capacity to Hire Obligations

Capacity is not only a metal plate. It feeds operational duties:

• When a hirer requires carriage of passengers up to the licensed seating capacity, the driver must not refuse merely because the group is large — provided the group size is within that licensed capacity and other lawful rules are met (seat belts, goods limits, and specific refuse-hire exceptions appear in later chapters).
• Conversely, the driver is not required to carry more passengers than the licensed/plated capacity allows. "Six is the maximum" protects both safety and the driver's right to refuse an overloaded boarding.

A clean exam formulation:

1. Plate and registration state the lawful passenger capacity (and the taxi maximum is six).
2. Within that number, hire-acceptance rules generally require the driver to take the passengers the hirer is entitled to bring.
3. Above that number, the journey is not a lawful seating arrangement for a taxi.

You will deepen refuse-hire and passenger-count offences in the passengers-and-conduct chapter; learn the capacity ceiling and plate facts here so those later duties have a number attached.

General Taxi Appearance Package (Recognition Summary)

Pull Sections 4.2 and 4.3 together for general taxis:

That package is how a member of the public (or an examiner's hypothetical) identifies a compliant general taxi before even looking at the taximeter flag.

Brief Distinction: General Taxis vs Fleet Taxis

Fleet taxis are still taxis, but they operate under the taxi fleet regime with extra identification and operational features (for example fleet plates in specified colours, fleet stops, and fleet-related hiring arrangements). Those details belong primarily to the later fares / vehicle-hire / fleet section of the guide.

For this section, only the recognition contrast matters:

• General taxis — master roof sign, bilingual body marks, capacity plates, possible Gazette exterior scheme, max six passengers.
• Fleet taxis — still bound by core taxi equipment and capacity concepts, but add fleet-specific markings and rules; do not assume a fleet vehicle is "unmarked" simply because its livery looks different from a classic general taxi.

If a question says general taxi, apply 4.2–4.3 closely. If it says fleet taxi, watch for fleet-plate and fleet-stop options from the fleet chapter rather than inventing exceptions that cancel capacity plates or the six-passenger maximum.

How Appearance Rules Support Enforcement

Capacity plates and body marks work with JRS and the taximeter as a full compliance picture:

1. Who is this vehicle? — roof sign, side TAXI/的士, possible Gazette colours, fleet marks if applicable.
2. How many may it carry? — white-on-green plates + registration + maximum six.
3. What happened on the journey? — JRS A/V + exterior video + GNSS (Section 4.1).
4. What was charged? — sealed taximeter + receipt (Chapter 3).

Breaking capacity display rules is not a minor cosmetic issue: it confuses lawful loading and weakens roadside checks.

High-Yield Numbers and Labels

Exam Focus List

• Maximum passenger seating capacity → six.
• Plates → front and rear, white on green, indelible.
• Number on plate → same as registration document.
• Shape/size of plate → Commissioner prescription.
• Hire link → carry up to licensed capacity when properly required; not beyond capacity.
• Appearance → general-taxi package vs fleet extras later.

Memory Hooks

• Six seats max — the single most reusable capacity fact.
• White numbers on green, both ends — front and rear capacity plates.
• Registration rules the plate — never invent a higher number for more fares.
• General looks standard; fleet adds fleet ID — do not mix chapters carelessly.

With Chapter 4 complete, you can answer the equipment-and-identity cluster after the taximeter: JRS recording and seals, roof and body markings, and capacity plates tied to the six-passenger maximum. Chapter 5 moves from how the vehicle is marked to where and how you may stand, pick up, and present as for hire.