Taxi woes
July 14th, 2007I give up on cabs. Even as early as 615am in the morning, it’s a rare sight to see an empty cab for hire. Most are hired or simply “busy” (probably driving their children to school) or changing shift. Although it takes me an hour plus to reach my workplace (and I have to reach by 740am), I will rather take public transport to work than to subject myself to the cabs’ availability. And the truth is, calling in to book a cab doesn’t really help too. There was this incident when I was put on hold for 45 minutes before an operator answered my phone call. And as you guess it, you get a cab when you call after 7am - when the drivers will earn extra peak hour surcharge.
Read the following from Straits Times Forum:
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Appropriate pricing of taxi services crucial |
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| I REFER to the recent letters on the state of the taxi industry in Singapore. As the largest taxi operator, ComfortDelGro would like to offer some perspectives on the issues raised. First, many people have suggested that the way to reduce waiting time for taxis during peak periods is to increase sharply the supply of taxis. This is a fallacy. Singapore already has one of the world’s highest taxi-to-population ratios, with about 5.1 taxis per thousand population. While the supply of taxis remains fixed throughout the day, demand fluctuates widely between peak and off-peak periods. During peak hours, demand is high and this leads to longer waiting times for commuters. On the other hand, during off-peak periods, demand falls below the available supply, resulting in taxis waiting for customers. What this means is that while we have a large taxi fleet to meet demand during the usual peak periods, the fleet is largely under-utilised during off-peak periods. Hence, it is not just a question of the supply of taxis but also the appropriate pricing of taxi services that is crucial in addressing the supply-and-demand problem. This is also the reason why the argument by some to remove call booking and surcharges will not solve the problem. Call booking and surcharges are part of the pricing mechanism that helps to minimise the waiting time of commuters during peak periods by better matching the supply of taxis to where the demand is. The call-booking system directs cabbies to respond to specific commuters while surcharges, such as the CBD surcharge, incentivise cabbies to ply in locations where demand is highest. There are, of course, occasions when demand far outstrips supply, thereby causing the call cater rate to drop. This happened recently when we received over 100,000 calls in an hour - almost 10 times the normal peak volume. Such spikes cannot be catered for and will therefore result in a backlog. We would like to assure commuters that we are committed to continually improve our taxi service. We have started differentiating booking fees between peak and off-peak hours and raising the peak-hour surcharge as an added measure to even out demand and supply. We are increasing resources in our call-booking system in response to public feedback and studying ways to encourage the greater use of call bookings.
We are also looking at further fine-tuning the overall fare structure to make it less complex and more effective in delivering a better taxi service to our commuters. Tammy Tan (Ms) My favourite reply from one of the readers? “The root of all problems lies with taxi operators charging ridiculous daily rental. There is a riddle spawn out of this: Guess what car you can get with a month installment of S$3000, for infinite years of payment? A. Ferrari NONE OF THE ABOVE. Correct answer; Yes, cabbies pay exhorbitant monthly rental of $3000 for something that they dont have ownership. This explains why cabbies have to optimise the passenger rides. And this explains why ceo of taxi companies earn 7digit salary and they dont even drive taxi. And also explains why taxi operating licence is so attractive.” |
With such high rentals, no wonder cabbies will go for booking fee. Taxi stands are a joke nowadays.