Most cabbies know their way around and expertly negotiate the city's busy traffic. Taxis are usually readily available, but hailing one in rush hours is difficult and on rainy days almost impossible.

Shanghai's taxis are colorful, unlike New York City's, which are all yellow. Cyan, yellow, white, green, blue, red, dark blue and dark red are the main colors of the taxis in Shanghai and the colors denote different taxi companies. Dark blue and dark red are the colors for the city's hundreds of small and medium taxi companies.

Real taxis have a logo light on the top of the car. Around the driver's seat is a transparent shield protect the driver from robbery. A meter and an illuminated vacancy disk on the dashboard are also necessities for a cab. Without all these things, the taxi is probably unlicensed and you should avoid it, even if the driver solicits you. You have no rights if injured in an unlicensed taxi.

The vacancy disk will help you know which cab is available. When the disk is upright and illuminated showing two Chinese characters -- 空车 -- it means the cab is vacant.

As mentioned, you may find cabs scarce in rush hours and on rainy days. Taxi call centers will also become too busy to reach in these situations. Your best bet is probably to head for places taxis haunt, such as restaurants. Although taxis don't often park outside restaurants, many people go there by taxi. If you are quick enough, you can jump in as other passengers get out.

Fares

Taking a taxi is much more expensive than taking a bus, but it is far from a luxury.

The minimum fare is 11 yuan (US$1.38), which covers the first 3 kilometers, and then 2 yuan is charged for every additional kilometer. After 10 kilometers, the fare jumps 50 percent - to 3 yuan for every additional kilometer. Being stuck in a traffic jam bumps up the bill. Five minutes of waiting time costs the same as a kilometer.

A 30 percent night surcharge applies from 11pm to 5am.n Shanghai, pooling a cab with strangers is banned.

Besides flagging down a cab on the street, you can also book a car by phone. There is no service fee for phone bookings except Dazhong company, which charges 4 yuan for each telephone or online reservation. The taxi hotline is, 96965 and English is available.

You can also send a short message of your detailed location to the call center's short message service (SMS) platform to ask for a taxi. The center will notify you in about 10 minutes whether a cab is available. China Mobile subscribers should send messages to 555596965, and China Unicom users to 2196965.

But the SMS platform is not available yet in English.

In addition to the 96965 hotline, the four big cabbies in Shanghai are also not allowed to take a tip. Most of them are amicable, but their English is limited. So it's best to get someone to write down your destination in Chinese.

Most taxi operators in Shanghai have their own call centers, but no SMS service.

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Cyan, yellow, white and green are the taxi colors you will see most frequently, as they are the logo colors of the city's four biggest taxi companies – Dazhong, Qiangsheng, Jinjiang and Bashi.

• Dazhong
  Color scheme: cyan
  Call center: 96822
  Simple English can be handled
  Reservation surcharge: 4 yuan.

• Qiangsheng
  Color scheme: yellow
  Call center: 6258-0000
  No English service.

• Jinjiang
  Color scheme: white
  Call center: 96961
  Simple English can be handled.

• Bashi
  Color scheme: green
  Call center: 96840
  Simple English can be handled.

All other taxi operators are either small companies or private drivers. Two rings have been esbablished to better administer these operators and to standardize services.

• Blue Union: A ring of 18 medium sized taxi companies.
  Color scheme: dark blue

• Premium Cab: A ring of small sized taxi companies and private drivers, who are required to pass a series of strict exams.
  Color scheme: red 

Shanghai's taxi authorities launched an industry call center (96965) in 2005, which is expected to cover all of the city's cabs in the near future.

"Juzai" (拒载) is not a technical term, but the Chinese phrase is only used in the taxi industry. It means cabbies refuse to drive passengers to the destination they want. In Shanghai, taxi drivers are not allowed to do so for any reason, once the passenger is in the car. Although "juzai" rarely happens nowadays,  you'd better know something about this.