THE chorus of complaints following last December's taxi fare increase seems to have died down.
Fears that customers would shy away from taxis, causing the earnings of cabbies to drop, seem to have been unfounded, according to surveys done by the country's two biggest taxi companies.
ComfortDelgro, the largest taxi operator here with about 15,000 of the country's 24,000 taxis, saw a 16 per cent increase in takings for a cabby's full day of work.
This is going by a survey of 5,000 meters. For a full-day shift, cabbies are earning $187.92 - up from $162 before the fare revision - even after deducting the cost of fuel and cab rental.
SMRT, which has about 3,000 taxis on the road, said cabbies reported a 20 per cent jump in gross income in the first quarter of this year, compared to the previous quarter. The data came from a survey of about 300 taxi drivers.
As part of a move to ease taxi shortage and raise the drivers' earnings, the six taxi companies raised their starting metered fare from $2.50 to $2.80 in December.
The meter was also adjusted to tick faster with 20 cents charged for every 385m up to 10km travelled, compared to 10 cents for every 210m.
The peak hour surcharge was also tweaked from a flat $2 to 35 per cent of the metered fare. The surcharge for picking up passengers in the city centre also went up from $1 to $3.
After resisting taxis in favour of public transport, more commuters are going back to cabs.
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THE chorus of complaints following last December's taxi fare increase seems to have died down.
Fears that customers would shy away from taxis, causing the earnings of cabbies to drop, seem to have been unfounded...............
.......This is going by a survey of 5,000 meters. For a full-day shift, cabbies are earning $187.92 - up from $162 before the fare revision - even after deducting the cost of fuel and cab rental............
.......The data came from a survey of about 300 taxi drivers..........
.......After resisting taxis in favour of public transport, more commuters are going back to cabs...........
Is this another recruitment promotion by the cab companies ?????
$187.92 earnings a day AFTER diesel and rental deductions !!!!! The earnings are even calculated right down to cents !!!!! If u take one day off per week, your income is still more than $4K/-, $187.92 x 26 days = $4510.08. This is even more than a lot of managerial positions in many other industries. With this potential income every month, i think people will start queing to be a taxi-driver liao lor....... I think the que will stretch from here to Batam, some say JB oso......
How many hours is that "full day shift"? I think they are saying $187.92 for max. 24 hrs operation.
So earning is = $187.92 / 24 = $7.83 per hour if you can drive 24 hrs.
DO NOT forget that this is a very risky job. Summons and accidents come very easy if you are not alert. Worse,can get hammered and robbed any time. Those blur kings sure die, lose money and quit driving taxi. Lose money nevermind, don't lose the life.
But sometime life is like that, taxi can just turn upside down no matter how careful you are. :P
Best will be to go back to the old days where taxi driver buy their own taxi and drive. I dont understand why we cant do that now and I dont really see any problem of doing that provided all taxi driver must join a taxi assosiation in case people compliant about the driver.
there're now thousands of pte buses which ply off the main roads, stop anywhere they want, set their own fares, etc etc
so why cant we own our taxis like pte buses?
**double standard from garmen right?
Bryan wrote:
Best will be to go back to the old days where taxi driver buy their own taxi and drive. I dont understand why we cant do that now and I dont really see any problem of doing that provided all taxi driver must join a taxi assosiation in case people compliant about the driver.
Dear peers,
this is exactly what i had in mind too, a privately bid/finance/insured/maintain/owner operatedtaxi.
which should be included in our proposed cabby society agenda as one of the near term objective, together w/the vision and mission stuff.
**Yup ! and all this talkabout entrepreneurship from the establishment yawnzz
Simply put it... the garmen just dun like the idea of taxi drivers earning more than MPs which is why no matter what, garmen's governing body will think of all sort of regulations to tie down taxi drivers. Taxi association dun even care a damn about us, they only make sure the companies dun lose money.
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No one understands the plight of being a taxi driver unless you had first hand experience - So STOP whining and start driving!
Hahaha This reporter Maria ..'Charbor' always bad in Mathematics... Imagine a 12 hours shift earning $187.92/12= $15.89. That is what the taxi meter will read based on 0.20cts per 45 seconds. Can we have passengers for the full 12 hours ??? So it is humanly impossible to earn that much without "extras". From what I learnt on International Labour Org. on work health. A person is not allowed to work continuosly over 4 hours without a break. So if we factor in the break period, the 12 hours will actually be 11hr30 min. with a 15 min break every 4 hours. and that do not include the toilet breaks. Machines do not need toilet breaks...or ****
Not forgetting the first 4 hours collecting to pay the rental. That leaves us 8 hours to earn 15.89 x 8 = $127.12 Minus diesel, car wash, air disinfectants we can just get to keep $80/- Can someone here send these figure to THAT reporter??
Eh bros, anyone for the idea of forming own taxi company with our push for new taxi driver association? If have enough participants, we should be our own boss sooner than expected and don't have to depend on taxi companies handouts. Problem is there is this requirement for radio call booking facilities. haiz...If only can revert to olden days of Yellow Tops.
what is the percentage of cabby who can make it? There is no data to confirm this statement. Its just a general statement made by the MOT aka Mr Raymond Lim Club.
Eh bros, anyone for the idea of forming own taxi company with our push for new taxi driver association? If have enough participants, we should be our own boss sooner than expected and don't have to depend on taxi companies handouts. Problem is there is this requirement for radio call booking facilities. haiz...If only can revert to olden days of Yellow Tops.
Actually I thought of it... Instead of paying more than 3k to the operators, I thinking of buying a new car, convert to taxi and pay my own instalment with the bank. It just that after reading the regulation that was regulated by the MOT club, I feel that Singapore Government is against the idea of anyone driving their own taxi.
My conclusion:
Government know that this is a lucrative business and they want to be part of it themselves.
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No one understands the plight of being a taxi driver unless you had first hand experience - So STOP whining and start driving!