March 4, 2009
LAST Saturday's letter, 'Lowering taxi fares won't help cabbies', reflects the perennial controversy over public transport fare structures.
The common practice of large taxi operators charging high rentals on cabbies and unilaterally imposing phone- booking fees and other surcharges on commuters is akin to price fixing and against the spirit of the Competition Act.
[Attempt to appeal to higher principles or ideals. Good try.]
There is no logic in imposing Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) charges on taxis when they are bona fide 'public transport' vehicles and not private cars. Our lawmakers should correct these anomalies. Only when rental is reduced to a fair level, say a 30 per cent cut, and all surcharges abolished, with no ERP charges, would taxi fares come down to 'affordable' levels.
[First attempt to selectively apply logic. Arguing that Taxis are public transport. I'd ague that taxis are pro-rated, usage based private vehicles.]
To revamp the taxi industry, we should look at the time-proven, meter-based and regulated single-fare system in Hong Kong, where 90 per cent of taxis are owned by individuals.
Each cab there makes 61 daily passenger trips, while a Singapore cab does about 37 trips. We have 24,000 taxis while Hong Kong has only 18,000. Sad to note, we do fewer daily trips despite having more cabs. It means that our taxi fleets are not efficient in picking up passengers on the roads.
[Or it means we have too many cabs. Failed to note the difference in population! Crappy pseudo-scientific, focus on what you want to see, ignore the rest!]
At the same time, cabbies are struggling with customer-unfriendly impediments. In terms of the compound passenger load factor, Hong Kong cabs perform 2.2 times better than us.
[I note that he makes no mention about fares. Let me provide the link and you decide it it is cheaper. Exchange rate is about HK$5 = S$1 as at Mar 2009.
http://www.td.gov.hk/transport_in_hong_kong/public_transport/taxi/taxi_fare_of_hong_kong/index.htm
The Phone booking is cheap - HK$4 only. But toll has to be paid - that's similar to ERP. Try explaining that it's public transport and should be exempt.
Generally, the cab fare in HK is about equivalent to Singapore. So it is not cheaper in HK.]
Perhaps, we need to do some retrospective study on the merits or demerits of deregulation. Profit for shareholders is the prime objective of listed corporations. Allowing taxis to come under the control of two large listed corporations may not be in the best interest of the public after all. If we don't revert to a simple meter-based fare system regulated by the Ministry of Transport and eliminate all impediments in the system, we would be perpetuating the burden on customers and cabbies.
Paul Chan
[So to recap this is just a litany of complaints with pseudo-rational arguments that selectively focus on some facts while ignoring others. He seems to have forgotten just a year or so ago when low fares meant high demand, and long waiting times for cabs. Reducing fares may bring back high demand and long waiting times for cabs again. Then there will be other complaints. Taxis are a premium service, and should be charged at a premium. ]
LAST Saturday's letter, 'Lowering taxi fares won't help cabbies', reflects the perennial controversy over public transport fare structures.
The common practice of large taxi operators charging high rentals on cabbies and unilaterally imposing phone- booking fees and other surcharges on commuters is akin to price fixing and against the spirit of the Competition Act.
[Attempt to appeal to higher principles or ideals. Good try.]
There is no logic in imposing Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) charges on taxis when they are bona fide 'public transport' vehicles and not private cars. Our lawmakers should correct these anomalies. Only when rental is reduced to a fair level, say a 30 per cent cut, and all surcharges abolished, with no ERP charges, would taxi fares come down to 'affordable' levels.
[First attempt to selectively apply logic. Arguing that Taxis are public transport. I'd ague that taxis are pro-rated, usage based private vehicles.]
To revamp the taxi industry, we should look at the time-proven, meter-based and regulated single-fare system in Hong Kong, where 90 per cent of taxis are owned by individuals.
Each cab there makes 61 daily passenger trips, while a Singapore cab does about 37 trips. We have 24,000 taxis while Hong Kong has only 18,000. Sad to note, we do fewer daily trips despite having more cabs. It means that our taxi fleets are not efficient in picking up passengers on the roads.
[Or it means we have too many cabs. Failed to note the difference in population! Crappy pseudo-scientific, focus on what you want to see, ignore the rest!]
At the same time, cabbies are struggling with customer-unfriendly impediments. In terms of the compound passenger load factor, Hong Kong cabs perform 2.2 times better than us.
[I note that he makes no mention about fares. Let me provide the link and you decide it it is cheaper. Exchange rate is about HK$5 = S$1 as at Mar 2009.
http://www.td.gov.hk/transport_in_hong_kong/public_transport/taxi/taxi_fare_of_hong_kong/index.htm
The Phone booking is cheap - HK$4 only. But toll has to be paid - that's similar to ERP. Try explaining that it's public transport and should be exempt.
Generally, the cab fare in HK is about equivalent to Singapore. So it is not cheaper in HK.]
Perhaps, we need to do some retrospective study on the merits or demerits of deregulation. Profit for shareholders is the prime objective of listed corporations. Allowing taxis to come under the control of two large listed corporations may not be in the best interest of the public after all. If we don't revert to a simple meter-based fare system regulated by the Ministry of Transport and eliminate all impediments in the system, we would be perpetuating the burden on customers and cabbies.
Paul Chan
[So to recap this is just a litany of complaints with pseudo-rational arguments that selectively focus on some facts while ignoring others. He seems to have forgotten just a year or so ago when low fares meant high demand, and long waiting times for cabs. Reducing fares may bring back high demand and long waiting times for cabs again. Then there will be other complaints. Taxis are a premium service, and should be charged at a premium. ]
No comments:
Post a Comment