Ms S.E. Koh, 31, relies heavily on taxis. The 31-year-old bank executive commutes daily between her home in Yio Chu Kang and her office in Shenton Way, often phone-booking her ride during the peak-hour rush.
She depends on taxis for her other transport needs too. 'I spend about $800 a month on cabs,' she said nonchalantly.
With fare increases kicking in next week, Ms Koh, who is single, is likely to see her monthly commuting expenses rise by around 10 per cent to $880.
That is just slightly under what she would spend if she bought a car.
Car prices have come down so much over the last decade that there is now not much difference between taking taxis and having your own set of wheels.
National University of Singapore Associate Professor K. Raguraman, who is co-chairman of the Physical Development Feedback Group, estimates that for someone to switch to a car, his monthly public transport expenses should be at least $1,000.
'If taxis are used for every trip done by a car, the former would be more expensive,' Prof Raguraman added. 'But many discretionary trips are carried out by drivers because they have cars.'
For illustration, we take the example of the China-made Chery QQ, which made its debut here last month. The 812cc QQ retails for about $32,000 (with certificate of entitlement), and is now the least expensive car available here. If you took a 70 per cent loan over seven years for it, bank interest charges come up to $5,096, at a flat rate of 3.25 per cent per annum now.
This is partly offset by the tax rebate of around $3,700 you get at the end of the car's 10-year lifespan, bringing the actual cost to $33,396 - or $3,339.60 a year.
Expenses like fuel, road tax, insurance, parking, Electronic Road Pricing charges and maintenance add up to an estimated $7,754 for a car like the QQ, bringing the grand total of car ownership cost to a little over $11,000 a year, or around $900 a month. That is quite close to what Ms Koh would have to incur in monthly cab fares starting tomorrow.
If a bigger car is chosen, the numbers are still not too heavily stacked against driving.
Say you bought a 1.6 litre Toyota Corolla Altis for $56,000 and spent another $7,000 doing it up with alloy wheels, body-kit and a premium sound system. Your usage costs will be higher than the QQ owner's, as you would be spending about $1,400 a month.
Now, if you travelled 18,000km by taxi (lower than the national average of 20,000km annual mileage of a car here), with a mixture of short and long trips, you would be coughing up close to $1,300 a month in cab fares. It would be much more if you travelled during peak hours or if you had to resort to call-booking.
Lawyer Bryan Tan, 35, points out the obvious when he said: 'Having a car is a lot more convenient. It is always there and you don't spend time waiting.'
Mr Tan was a regular cab commuter before he bought a Hyundai Matrix in 2003. As a junior lawyer, he did mainly backroom work. But now, his work requires him to be out more.
He recalls spending around $450 a month on cabs - more if he did not use the MRT occasionally. He paid $65,000 for his car and reckons his monthly expenses come up to around $1,200. It is more than his cab expenses, but 'I get a better quality of life'.
'I gather from my colleagues that it is still difficult to get a cab in the evenings,' he said. 'Back in the late 1990s, when many of us didn't have mobile phones, we would phone for a taxi in the office and rush downstairs. If we missed it, we'd have to go upstairs and repeat the whole process.'
But some like Ms Koh are quite happy to stick with cabs, which the bank executive said 'is still convenient'.
'Unless I'm in a marketing or sales job, I don't really need a car,' she said. 'Right now, I'd just be parking it for a good part of the day.'
Singapore's car population has grown by 23 per cent in the last 10 years to around 450,000 units at the end of last month, nudging the ownership ratio among residents to one in eight, from one in 10.
At the same time, taxi ridership over the same period fell by 7 per cent to 827,000 rides a day last year.
