>TAXI drivers who hustle visitors by quoting fixed charges that are several times the equivalent metered fare must be dealt with firmly. They should be banned by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) from holding a licence for a number of years. Three years should do it. That will teach them. Little is to be accomplished by the taxi company they are contracted to dismissing them. They can switch to another quite easily. Licence suspension? A written warning? Let's not get wimpish. These are cheats who have brazenly expanded their territory of operation from the race course, where pickings are good, to hotel and shopping zones where tourists are a catch. Locals are being denied an equivalent service as a result. A visitor cited in a Sunday Times report assumed that not going by the meter was standard practice in South-east Asian cities. Not this city, never. The message must go out loud and clear to the small number of cabby diddlers.
That said, the LTA ought to consider if the insidious practice is an indication of market failure. Fares are too low, which places huge demands on the service. Cabbies' earnings are not commensurate with the time and energy put in, and going without leave, medical and CPF benefits on top of that. Taxi operators bump up drivers' earnings through all manner of surcharges and the phone booking charge. This has caused more confusion and dissatisfaction among commuters than is worth the trouble. Once and for all, the LTA could take an executive decision by reclaiming the price-setting prerogative in the deregulated service. Raise the flagdown fare substantially (50 to 70 per cent, say) and increase the rate of kilometre charges. That should cut out the mischief and preserve earnings, even if demand drops initially. Taxi companies have no incentive to make the move as income from daily rental is assured, whatever the level of commuter demand.
This article first appeared in The Straits Times on 21 October 2007
