Size seems to count in the taxi trade. The 3 newest and smallest taxi industry players, namely Transcab, SMART Automobiles and Premier Taxis (Silvercab), all could not meet some of LTA's laid down service standards.
TransCab, failing the "Call Answer Rate" in two consecutive months (June and July 2005), face financial penalties of $3,180.
Premier Taxis faces penalties of $2,988 for failing to meet the "Call Answer Rate" in three consecutive months (July, August and September).
Smart Automobile failed the"Call Answer Rate" between June and September 2005 and "Cater Rate" in the months of June, July and August 2005. As such, Smart Automobile will face penalties of $6,697.
SMART's 2nd fine of S$2,420, will go towards it for failing to dispatch a cab at least 90% of occasions to customers who got through from June to July 2005. SMART was also hit with a 3rd fine of S$2,000 for exceeding the accident rate allowed (2 injury-related accidents/10 million km clocked).
SMART boss, Tommy Harjantho, was very upset. He said that the company had invested in a $100,000 voice-response system, and they couldnt had failed the 90% requirement.
On the other hand, ComfortDelgro's operated Yellow Top Cab, was also fined S$3,471 for exceeding the maximum accident rate allowed.
The audit moniters Taxi companies Service levels, Quality of Service, Time taken to confirm booking, Success in catering to a booking, and passenger waiting time for the booked cab, and Taxi safety standards.
More information, please read here:
http://app.lta.gov.sg/corp_press_content.asp?start=1457