I REFER to the letter, "Designate prominent areas for cabs to queue for passengers" (my paper, May 25), which highlighted the need for recesses in roads for taxis and to treat cabs as an integral component of public transport.

I disagree with some of the points raised. The Land Transport Authority (LTA) has built numerous taxi stands to facilitate the orderly queueing of taxis. However, stricter enforcement is now required because taxi drivers had been queuing indiscriminately outside such taxi stands.

Moreover, in the city centre, many taxis had started to pick up or set down passengers as and where they would like the cabbies to do so.

As for foreigners or tourists who are bewildered when they fail to flag down a taxi, the reason why they encounter such problems is not because the cabby cannot stop to pick them up, but rather because some cabbies choose to pick up a fare in certain areas where additional surchages apply.

For example, commuters have difficulty flagging down a cab at Shaw Centre, Shaw House, Wheelock Place, Hilton Hotel, Far East Plaza, Hyatt Hotel or Havelock Road, which are barely 50m away from the Central Business District, where taxi drivers can apply a $3 surcharge to their fare.

Such additional charges are part of the reason why commuters continue to have difficulty flagging down cabs.

Mr Raymund Koh Joo Guan

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