Taxis out of COE bidding process from August
SINGAPORE: Taxis will be taken out of the Certificate of
Entitlement (COE) bidding process from next month, as the
government also plans to improve taxi availability on the
road.
The
move is in response to feedback that taxi operators may have
influence on COE prices, said Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew on
Friday.
And
to ensure that these operators use their fleets better, the number
of COEs they are entitled to will be tied to taxi availability
standards.
These
standards will be introduced next year.
All
taxis currently bid under the small car category or Category A of
the COE system. But from August, they will be removed from the bidding process
permanently.
Instead,
COEs used for taxi fleet expansion will be extracted from
the quota for Category
E, which is usually meant for
big cars.
Taxi
operators will pay for the COEs based on Category A's Prevailing
Quota Premium, which is the moving average of the COE
prices over the last three months.
Mr
Lui said: "There is evidence to show that the taxis, at least in
the last bidding cycle and earlier bidding cycles, have not
affected prices. But there is also
some evidence that they may have affected prices in the Category A
COEs.
"...Taking
in the feedback from the public and from the industry and having
studied this issue for quite some time, we thought that this is the
appropriate thing to do. They will still be paying Category A
prices, but they will be price takers henceforth, so they will just
pay Prevailing Quota Premium. "
Improving
taxi availability to better serve commuters, especially during peak
periods, is another issue.
The
Land Transport Authority (LTA) says the number of taxis on the road
has gone up by more than twice the growth of ridership in recent
years.
Yet,
there has been persistent feedback about taxis not being
available.
So
from 2014, the number of COEs for fleet expansion will be tied to
the extent operators are able to meet taxi availability
standards.
The
LTA says it is still in discussion with operators on the proposed
taxi availability standards and it expects to reveal the details in
the fourth quarter this year.
Meantime,
from August this year to December 2013, the number of COEs that
operators are able to procure will be matched closely to the growth
in taxi ridership.
Mr
Lui said LTA will reveal details next week.
When
contacted, the biggest taxi operator, ComfortDelGro, said it
expects the impact to be minimal since it has been using the
Prevailing Quota Premium for taxi replacements.
Another
taxi operator, SMRT, said it will study the
measures.
Mr
Cedric Foo, chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee for
Transport, welcomed the move by the authorities. He also suggested
another way to tackle the problem of taxi
availability.
"If
we were to set the standard, it could read something like
(requiring) the fleet of taxis to be on the road 70 percent of the
time, and create an average taxi miles per day. That will get the
taxis out on the streets rather than have part of the fleet idling
some part of the day," he said.
Mr
Ang Hin Kee, adviser to the National Taxi Association, said that
Friday's announcement will help ensure that more commuters are able
to get a cab whenever they want to.
But
Mr Ang, who is also an MP, said that having more taxis on the road
alone does not solve the problem of
availability.
"During
peak hours, there must be alternative expansion plans other than
just taxi availability. During peak hour at, let's say 8-9am, I can
understand there will be huge congestion on the road. Buses are
also quite packed, so is MRT. So, riding on taxis alone to solve
availability problem will not be an easy one."
Welcoming
the latest move by LTA, industry players said they expect
prices for small cars to drop a little.
They
said demand for small cars will still
be high, as there is not enough supply of COEs in that
category.
Some
called for taxis to be taken out of the vehicle quota system
entirely.
Mr
Michael Wong from the Motor Traders Association of Singapore said:
"The public transport numbers should be planned in accordance with
how our public transport planners look at service delivery and
utility. If that's the case...all that they really need to do is to
fix the number of taxis you want per year and then pay the PQP
(Prevailing Quota Premium), (just like) what they have formulated
now."
-
CNA/ir
