My blog (www.cabby65.blogspot.com) is about my life and
experiences as a cabby in Singapore. Hopefully, my today's posting
about my observations and experiences of a few things uniquely
Singapore will be helpful in widening my readers' perspectives of
taxi drivers here. I hope you're not tired of the banality of my
posts.
Now, I'm thinking frivolously of the word -"rank", which has all
sorts of meanings. Rank could mean a position in an army or a taxi
rank could mean a taxi queue or taxi stand. You could also use rank
to emphasize something that's is terribly smelly.
For me, taxi rank is closest to my heart. You see, whenever I see
an empty taxi rank, I can't resist the temptation to get in quickly
and be the first in the rank instantly. But usually ranks have
taxis on them and when you join one, you have to wait until you
progress to the front before getting a customer. Believe me, more
often than not. you have to usually make a long, long wait before
you get a customer, especially at airport taxi rank. Frequently, it
takes about an hour of waiting in an airport rank before a customer
jumps in. So you can imagine when the customer wants to drop off
just a few kilometers from the airport. like Simei or Pasir Ris,
your heart shattered when the taxi fare is less than $10 (inclusive
of $3 airport surcharge) and that's for an hour of frustrating wait
in the airport rank. Well, just curse your dammed luck,
buddy!
At the same time, you can also imagine the attraction when a taxi
driver sees an rank empty. But buddies, don't be too happy. Why a
taxi rank is empty?. Usually, it's because there are no people
around. I usually give myself ten minutes in an empty taxi rank. If
no customers approaches by then, I would quickly move off to ply
the road elsewhere.
Now, in uniquely Singapore, we have the ERP (Electronic Road
Pricing) system, which is an electronic system of road pricing
based on a pay-as-you-use principle. Adopted in 1998. Singapore was
the first city in the world to implement an electronic toll road
collection system with flexible pricing to control traffic
congestion.
ERP gantries are placed around the CBD (Central Business
District - city areas), major expressways and heavily used
roads. If a customer board a cab inside the CBD from 5pm to
midnight at every day of the week, they have to pay a surcharge of
$3. Most cabbies are seduced by this surcharge and converge into
CBD like bees to honey. All ranks inside the CBD at popular
shopping malls, like Lucky Plaza and office buildings in Suntec are
lined with many, many taxis with ready customers. Whereas,
just outside the CBD, around the fringes taxi ranks at Far East
Plaza, Orchard Tower, Vivo City, etc..etc.., the ranks are
empty of taxis but with many angry customers. This is what
I call "the CBD Dilemma". This is indeed a problem that has plagued
the taxi business here for a long time and nobody seems to have a
solution for it.
It's natural for cabbies to prefer picking customers inside CBD to
earn the $3 surcharge. They are ply the streets for the money not
for pleasure. Perhaps, LTA should designate some "popular fringes
CBD taxi stands" with location surcharge of $2 like the Singapore
Expo Center in Changi. I think it's worth paying an extra $2 than
endure a frustrating half an hour wait at taxi ranks. By the way,
taxi is not a public transport service like buses or MRT trains but
a premium transport service run by self-employed drivers and
private companies. I can hear screams of protests from taxi
commuters, liao!. But in today's ST forum, someone suggested
starting the $3 CBD surcharge earlier from 2pm instead of 5pm.
Sure or not?
Anyway, when it's midnight without the $3 surcharge but instead the
50% midnight surcharge rolls in, it seems that all the taxis in
Singapore (about 28,000) are out and everywhere looking for
business. They would come like army of termites and cleared all the
once-angry customers within minutes and soon, the streets are
filled with hundreds of empty taxis hunting for the few customers
left...it's a pathetic sight. Each will try to out race the other
as soon as the traffic light turn green. Most of the time, they
race for nothing.
There are so many things I love about being a cabbie, mainly, the
people and the adventure and the unpredictability of each shift.
And of course, the flexible working hours. You're your own boss,
with nobody breathing down your neck. But there are also a few
things that I dislike, like traffic jams and accidents and all the
abuses that some difficult customers heaped on cabbies. Well,
take the heat or get out of the kitchen.
"After all being said, I now recall a Malay family of a mother and
two teenage daughters in my cab last night. On the way, they were
talking in Malay, which I don't understand. They talked and
laughed, laughed and talked, for the whole journey. Nothing in this
world seemed to be able to spoil their high spirit. And that's the
spirit I like to adopt." ....by Dr.Cai Mingjie.. a PhD taxi
driver.
