Yes, there is still a taxi company in Singapore with the flag down rate of $2.50. This newest operator that obtained Taxi Operator Licence (TOL) in May 2007, Prime Car Rental & Taxi Service (operates Prime), with around 100 taxis decides not to follow the exact formula of ComfortDelgo’s fare hike. This lower flag down rate will remain for 3 months.
Prime taxis will be having a price hike on 1 Jan 2008. It will follow ComfortDelgo’s new metered fare and city (CBD) surcharge. The metered fare will be in jumping in denomination of $0.20, and the CBD will be increase from $1 to $3 and the CBD hours for Mon-Thu with hours extended from 1700-2000 to 1700-0000. Its booking surcharge for Mon-Fri 0730-0930 and 1700-2300 is reduced by $0.50 from $4 to $3.50. Just took a Prime taxi to town, and learnt from the driver that Prime will not be following the new ComfortDelgo metered fare from 1 Jan 2008. So, only the city (CBD) surcharge.
Recap of fare hike
We have a total of 6 different taxi operators in Singapore, and 4 of them decided to follow ComfortDelgo taxi fare hike.
Timeline
17 Dec 07: Effective date for ComfortDelgo (CityCab, Comfort and Yellow-Top) taxis fare hike
21 Dec 07: Effective date for SMRT taxi fare hike
24/25 Dec 07: Effective date for Premier Taxi, TransCab, Smart taxi fare hike. (Not all taxis had their metered calibrated, so some were not charging the fare hike on the effectivce date)
01 Jan 08: Effective date for Prime fare hike. (Flag down rate will not be raised for 3 months.)
Booking hotlines
6552 1111 Comfort Transportation Pte Ltd (ComfortDelgo)
6552 1111 CityCab Pte Ltd (ComfortDelgo)
6293 5545 Yellow Top Taxi (ComfortDelgo)
6555 8888 SMRT Taxis Pte Ltd
6555 3333 Trans-Cab Services Pte Ltd
6485 7777 Smart Automobile Pte Ltd
6363 6888 Premier Taxis Pte Ltd
6778 0808 Prime Car Rental & Taxi Services Pte Ltd
I read on the evening tabloids that one of the cabbies has indicated that he won’t charge the 35% peak hour surcharge and of course the authorities (LTA I suppose) didn’t like him rocking the boat and says it’s illegal. But if every cabbie start doing that, I doubt there’s much the LTA can do about it anyway since we commuters are unlikely to complain anyway.
Rumor is that some taxi drivers are saying that if the current ‘bad business’ situation persists until Chinese New Year, they are considering quitting. Let’s keep this up…
[...] by The Singapore Daily on 3 January 2008 ERPains, Trains & Automobiles – Alice in Winderland: Cheapest taxi company in Singapore with $2.50 flag down fare – Singapore Life and Times: Riding on a New Regime – Darth Grievous’ Dark Domain: Taxi Taxi [...]
I think that now that there are more taxis queuing for people, Singaporeans should start touting for taxis. Ask the drivers for a $1 discount off the metered fare as a precondition for boarding. This is no different than the way they used to behave when asking to preapprove your destination.
xizor2000, assuming some of the drivers quit, the remaining drivers will probably benefit from the reduction in competitors (fellow taxi drivers).
those who can bear with these “tough times” will make it through and those who can’t, will quit. The number of drivers will gradually reduce till it’s equilibrium to the consumer demand.
The taxi companies probably wouldn’t have to bother about anything except to listen to the initial/current complaints, while waiting out for consumers and taxi drivers to kill each other. when it reaches the state of equilibrium, we peasants will feel that everything’s back to normal and start flagging down taxi again.
When enough taxi drivers quit, it would hurt the bottom line of the taxi companies. Ultimately both the cabbies and the commuters must know our real enemy isn’t one another, but the transport operators.
A day in strike by the cabbies or a day where all Singaporeans DON’T take a cab would make a real point.
hmnn.. the government have to do something this time, all the taxi do not want to take passenger outside CBD area, especially areas near the CBD, they just drove off and pretending not to see you. I thought I was lucky to get one that drop a passenger at river valley, he is hesitate to take me after asking where I am going, i said buklit batok, he pause and say.. sigh.. come in la.
The moment i got into the cab, i told him i waited very long and all taxi driver just drove past me.. He said he is stupid to take me, if he were to head to town he got $3 more… he nag all the way till i got home.
I think the idea of the $3 extra charge till midnight in CBD area is a disaster, tourist & local who is ouside the CBD area will really face problem, and the CBD area will jam and floated with cab. I wonder who come out with such an “IDEA”!!! Should go get a course in psychology.
“$3 to cabbies is like a meal, they will think this extra guarantee them a meal each time they head to town”
This situasion will leave this country with bad image.. as most tourist will go online to check all the transportation in the country b4 they come in.
@don: The main problem is that simply saying that there is a taxi problem is not going to get them to really act and solve the problem.
First, they are not affected.
Second, they can’t see it affecting the country’s revenue.
Third, as long as each department individually obtain their KPI, such as the disel tax may be meeting the KPI of a department, that department sees no incentive to become the first to be unable to meet their KPI, in order to increase the revenue of perhaps tourism, even if in overall, the decrease is lesser than the increase in revenue. Let the meeting of tourism KPI be the other department’s worry.