Daily rental of a taxi is about $110/- for a 2000 cc diesel sedan.
Yearly rental $110 X 30 x 12 = $39,600/-. That is about $1000/- less than a 1300 cc sedan that neighboring country taxis drivers are using.
It is not feasible here to run on petrol even though prices of COE has dropped as the ownership and operation costs of cars are still very high. A taxi, which is a public transportation, is also subject to the same prohibitive dual ownership and usage costs of private cars.
Older folks and wheelchair bound patients going for regular checkups and treatments but too weak to climb the buses relies on cabs. Taking a cab to and fro say from Jurong West to NUH is about S$18/-. The taxis fare is indirectly influenced by the ARF, which is 110% of the import price of a car, inadvertently add to the financial burden of these caregiver families.
Comments, suggestions pls.
The fares maybe comparable to some big cities but prices of their cars are much cheaper. HK taxis have a good reason to charge higher taxi fare simply because their population is almost twice of Spore with landmass only marginally bigger. Meaning the demand for land double that of Spore. Not forgetting that they built houses on mountains. Very tall residential buildings can be seen about 15 minutes car ride from the HK airport. The height limit in Spore has curbed her upwards expansion for residential uses i.e. 35- storey and above.
Here a lot of land has been given for military purpose. Just imagine an island of 684 sq km has 5 military air bases, about 40 camp complexes. Then add up the vast areas for training. These vast premises added up can be a town.
If the road space is becoming scarce then what are we doing to cope with a five million population? The purchase of top brand cabs also push up the business costs of the taxi company. A bi-fuel masterpiece cost S$168,000/- a piece after green tax rebate. How to recover the costs for these cabs? And also the fines imposed by authority for taxi co not measuring up to a certain standards also bring up the business costs.
Is there a taxi co-operative in Singapore?
In some countries drivers split their earnings with the taxi company.Probably no rental. Here you are not exactly the employee but wears the uniform, bit like freelance. They can rent only from that co, so not exactly a rental co. But keep all earnings, fixed daily rental. I think neither here nor there.