Road And All The Rage

As popular as ride-hailing and food delivery apps are, they are also exerting a heavy burden on our roads in terms of safety and congestion.

HAVE you noticed that it is much easier to flag down a cab these days?

On four separate occasions in the past several weeks, I managed to flag down a taxi within three minutes. That is shorter than the average time it takes for a train to arrive.

One time, I walked past someone who was trying to hail a ride on his phone, and hopped into a cab while he was still busy tracking the progress of his ride.

There is of course, good reason for this.

According to Land Transport Authority statistics, average taxi ridership plunged to 647,000 a day last year (2018) – down from about one million before private-hire operators arrived in 2013.

So, despite the taxi population having fallen from a high of 28,000 to 20,000 in the same timeframe, taxi availability is high (seeing how ridership has fallen by a lot more).

That explains why I have had no problem getting a cab on those four occasions, granted all of them were not during the peak hours.

Then again, it is a recognised fact that during peak demand – say, the morning rush hour, when it rains, when the MRT breaks down, on Friday or Saturday evenings – there are never enough rides available.

Even today, when there are 66,000 vehicles (20,000 cabs and the rest private-hire cars) providing point-to-point transport services, there is not enough supply during the peaks.

Which is why there are surcharges and surge pricing during those times mentioned above.

Granted the 46,000 private-hire drivers are probably not all full-timers.

But we also have to take into account car-pooling services such as GrabHitch, whose population of drivers is estimated to be as many as registered private-hire drivers, if not more.