BEIJING, CHINA - China's fourth-largest city promised on Tuesday to address concerns over fuel and pay in a bid to end a taxi drivers' strike which triggered attacks on cabs and police cars, state media said.

Cab drivers in Chongqing launched a rare strike on Monday in protest against a range of gripes ranging from scarcity of natural gas fuel to heavy traffic fines.

Three police cars and more than a dozen other vehicles were smashed by a crowd of about 100 people, mainly striking cabbies, who intercepted working taxis and pulled drivers and passengers from cars, Xinhua news agency said.

The southwestern city promised to increase the amount of fuel available, punish unlicensed taxis and "revise the division of fares between drivers and companies in favour of the drivers", Xinhua news agency quoted an official as saying.

Refuelling currently means waiting in line for up to three hours as often as four times per day, and taxi owners are suspected of extorting increasingly high monthly usage fees from drivers, the report said.

China's cab drivers have been squeezed in recent years by sharply rising gas prices and rapid inflation, which have not been fully matched by increases in their rates.

Officials are reluctant to let them charge more because taxis are a key means of getting around in a country where car ownership is still relatively limited and public transport is often crammed and slow.

(Reporting by Beijing newsroom; Editing by Nick Macfie)