A moment in time: Changing face of taxis

A view of Chang'an Avenue (above) in Beijing in March 1993 with its long lines of yellow minivans. The minivans were the most-popular type of Beijing taxis in service then.

In recent years, however, as the photo (below) shows, other types of taxis have taken over - evident from a scene in front of the Beijing Railway Station.

Official data shows that taxis all over China carried 40 billion passengers in 2015, which means they move more than 100 million people a day.