CABBY Woo
Chong Guan spent 15 years hiring his vehicle from a taxi firm and
renting it out to a relief driver after his shifts.
But finding
such drivers did not prove easy and it was this burden - together
with concern for his health - that prompted the 52-year-old to
become a relief driver himself in May last year.
Last week,
the National Taxi Association suggested increasing the pool of
10,000 relief drivers in an effort to meet improved standards being
set by the Land Transport Authority, which wants to ensure enough
cabs are on the road at peak times. This move would see more
"two-shift" taxis on the road virtually round the clock.
However, Mr
Woo, who is on the road from 7am to 7pm every day except Sunday,
said finding reliable partners to work with is not easy. "It's a
give-and-take relationship," he said. "Sometimes there are
misunderstandings."
Some
cabbies run over their time when they take more passengers at the
end of a shift. Others complain their partners do not pump enough
petrol into the cab when they hand it over, he said.
In June,
the LTA set up a website to match hirers with relief drivers but by
the end of October, it had only made 48 matches.
From
January to September, the proportion of two-shift taxis on
Singapore's roads was 56 per cent, up from about 50 per cent in
that period last year.
Typically,
a cab on a single shift is on the road from eight to 12 hours a
day, while those with a relief driver can be on the move for up to
24 hours.
National
Taxi Association adviser Ang Hin Kee says more can be done to
increase the pool of relief drivers. As of August, there were about
98,620 taxi drivers' vocational licence holders.
"It's good
that LTA portal can give some supplementary help," said Mr Ang, MP
for Ang Mo Kio GRC. "But at the end of the day, it falls back on
the owner of the vehicle to find a better solution,"
He has
called for a review of the taxi business model, whereby operators
rent out their cabs. The seven taxi operators here own about 27,000
vehicles altogether.
With the
existing model, hirers are in a poorer bargaining position because
they bear the full burden of finding relief drivers to share the
vehicle's rental cost, he said.
There is
also the hassle of finding drivers near their homes, working out
private agreements, and settling disputes.
"Cab
companies can be more proactive in helping all drivers take
part-ownership of the vehicles instead of leaving it to hirers," he
said. "It's not about put- ting more cabs on the road, but making
each cab work harder."
A spokesman
for the LTA said it will look into NTA's suggestion to increase the
relief drivers pool.
Mr Zali
Abu, 52, a cabby for more than 20 years, works closely with four
relief drivers. "I'm quite easy-going. They just need to keep the
vehicle clean, pump the petrol and pay the rental," he said. "But
I've heard of cases where hirers are fussy and end up quarrelling
with their partners."
Some
cabbies prefer to work solo. Cabby C.S. Lee, 57, said: "Maybe they
want to go home to rest and come out to drive again during the peak
hours."
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