If you ran a home-based business selling cakes, and it rained so
heavily that delivering your customers’ orders became a problem,
what would you do?
Sure, you’re getting many calls from buyers, because no one wants
go out in the thunderstorm. But you’re likely to get caught in a
jam, and that means long delays and therefore fewer deliveries.
Worse, you might get into an accident on the way, and that could
put you out of business for the next few days.
Okay, you’ll get a few irate customers complaining about poor
service, but hey, it’s just not worth the risk, especially as
you’ll probably earn less today anyway. Besides, it’s just cakes,
right? No one’s going to starve just because you close shop for a
day.
That’s probably what many taxi drivers figure out when the
raindrops start to hit their windscreens, and it’s understandable
that some of them will quickly conclude: Stop driving.
A recent study said it found that there were fewer taxis plying the
roads when it rained, although taxi operator ComfortDelgro has
figures indicating otherwise.
But talk to any cabby, and some will candidly admit that they do
take a break when it rains, or know of colleagues who do.
And if you really think about it, it not only makes sense, but it’s
not even really wrong, is it? (Note to frustrated passengers: just
stay with me here.)
Under the current taxi business model, every cabby is a
businessman. Every month, he rents the car from the operator, then
runs his own “business”, driving as much as he wants. Apart from
having to obey certain rules, he alone decides where and when he
wants to drive, and answers only to himself on how much he wants to
earn.
Like the cake maker, he can choose to earn less.
Of course, if you’re a taxi passenger caught in the rain, this will
be utterly unacceptable. How can taxis stay off the roads when
they’re most needed? And what kind of service do you call this,
anyway?
Clearly, it is a problem when a country’s taxi service fails to
meet the demands that its customers have. And it’s something that
the Government and operators have tried to address over the years,
using a plethora of rules, policies and incentives.
There’s GPS units to help the operator locate empty cabs to speed
up bookings – or to check when they’re parked in one spot for too
long. There’s all sorts of surcharges, to encourage cabbies to
drive into town and to stay on the roads at peak hours. And there’s
a long list of rules and guidelines, warning against choosing
customers, poor service, dirty cabs and so on.
But none of it seems to have solved the problems of availibility
completely.
Cabbies still occasionally ask whether you are going their way
(wasn’t it supposed to be the other way round?), wait for call
bookings instead of plying the roads, and stop driving when it
rains.
Ultimately, I believe, the measures have their limitations simply
because at the end of the day, the cabby is a businessman, not an
employee. And therefore, he can only be encouraged or incentivised
to improve his service, and not forced to.
So perhaps one possible answer to commuters’ woes is to relook
Singapore’s taxi business model, and ask: Is there another way of
selling taxi services?
The extreme opposite would the public bus model, where drivers are
employed and therefore cannot choose where and when they drive. The
onus is then on the operator to maintain the quality of
service.
Applying this wholesale to the taxi trade will probably not work,
because cabbies do not ply fixed routes like buses. They could be
made to drive, but without any incentive to pick up passengers,
many might just cruise around empty.
Perhaps there can be a mix of models, where cabbies are paid a
fixed income to ensure they drive a minimum number of hours, as
well as a cut of the fares to encourage them to pick up more
passengers – just like hired salesmen who get commissions.
Some of these models have been employed abroad, with taxi operators
hiring full-time drivers, or paying them by the trip. But many of
these models work for “private-hire” systems – that is, taxis have
to be pre-booked. Or they are employed for fixed routes, such
as between the city centre and the airport.
Singapore’s operators do offer call booking, but here’s the catch –
apart from the limousine and special cabs, it’s the same pool of
drivers. That means that passengers often end up competing for
cabbies and their cars, not cabbies competing for passengers’
business.
Perhaps Singapore could do with a bigger variety of business
models, to meet different types of passenger demand: Taxis plying
the roads for immediate hire, but whose availability will depend on
their drivers’ preferences; and private-hire taxis whose service
can be better regulated, but will have to be booked in advance.
In a way, the bus industry already has it: There are public buses
that run regularly and cover common routes; express buses that ply
specific routes at peak hours; and a wide range of privately-run
minibuses catering to specific users, such as students, factory
workers and condo residents.
Whether some of these models can be profitable will ultimately
depend on demand and supply.
At present, these two are highly volatile, but cannot match because
of the fixed fare structure.
Bidding for taxis at peak hours or bargaining could solve the
problem, but would leave the system extremely messy and open to
price-fixing and cheating.
But perhaps a variety of taxi operators, competing with different
types of services with different fare structures, could hopefully
increase the chances of matching demand and supply a little more
closely.
That’s why you have cake shops, and those who sell cakes on order.
This way, everyone gets to buy their cake and eat it too.
