TAXI giant ComfortDelGro Corp is waiving call-booking levies for
its cabbies for a week this month.
This means Comfort and CityCab
cabbies will earn 30 cents more for current bookings, and $1 extra
for advance bookings during the waiver period from Nov 11 to
17.
The move is expected to cost the listed company around $350,000 in
revenue.
Company spokesman Tammy Tan said the waiver is "a gesture of
appreciation to all our drivers for helping us achieve over nine
million successful booking jobs in the last quarter". The figure is
a record for Singapore's biggest taxi operator, which controls
16,800 out of 28,000 cabs plying the roads here.
But industry players said the move is
also in response to competition posed by taxi apps that are
elbowing their way into the lucrative taxi booking
market.
Comfort cabby Tony Pang, 64, described the waiver as "good and
encouraging".
"But maybe it is also to discourage drivers from using Uber and
GrabTaxi," he added, referring to two of four taxi apps present
here.
These apps have been chipping away at booking revenue of taxi
operators in the last two years or so.
GrabTaxi, for instance, has seen its booking volume grow a
hundredfold since it was launched a year ago, to an estimated
40,000 bookings a month. And now, Uber is giving away mobile phones
to cabbies who sign up with it.
Meanwhile, commuters are wondering why ComfortDelGro's goodwill
gesture is not extended to them as well.
Regular cab commuter Lynn Chua, 42, said: "I book cabs all the
time. It would have been nice for Comfort to give loyal customers a
booking discount."
The financial consultant added: "But I suppose that would jack up
booking volume, and it might not be able to cope with that."
Ms Tan of ComfortDelGro said the levy waiver for drivers will
benefit commuters indirectly as "drivers are incentivised to take
on more booking jobs".
