By TK Chua
It is easy to thrash the taxi service in our country. I think many have had bad experiences with them before. Therefore, Uber and GrabCar are a welcome relief. A recent attack by taxi drivers on a Uber car and its passengers only added fuel to the burning fire.
I am neither anti-taxi nor pro-Uber. I am however all for a proper regulatory environment for the public transport industry.
Our taxi service is deplorable because our regulatory regime is hopeless. The cost of running a taxi is not confined to operating costs. There are permits and regulatory costs as well. Do we know the cost of a taxi permit? Do we know how much a taxi operator must fork out to comply with all the regulatory, health, safety and inspection requirements?
How then can we expect the taxi industry to compete effectively when every Tom, Dick and Harry can operate a GrabCar or Uber overnight by just installing an “application”?
Of course it is not right for taxi drivers to take the law into their own hands. Of course it is not right for taxi drivers to provide horrendous service to customers. However it is a well-known fact that taxi operators have been exploited by all and sundry for years now. They simply cannot provide a decent service because the taxi industry is simply not profitable anymore. The taxi permit owners, the car owners and probably the regulators have taken everything worth taking.
Uber and GrabCar are able to provide better service because most are “owner operators”. They do not have to pay or bribe to get a taxi permit. They do not have to comply with every regulation – Puspakom inspections, health checks, driving permits et cetera.
We cannot have two regulatory environments governing the same industry – one is highly regulated with all the regulatory costs imposed while the other is almost completely free of any regulation.
The fault lies with SPAD and other regulatory agencies. They do not know how to provide a level playing field or impose industry-wide regulations. They only know how to blame and arrest offenders without identifying the root causes.
It is so easy to condemn the taxi drivers. I too have had numerous bad experiences with them. But to solve this problem, we need industry-wide approaches. The regulatory authorities have been whining for years now but so far nothing substantive has been proposed.
I guess it is never easy when someone has put sand into your rice bowl. This is what most taxi drivers are feeling now and we can continue to choose to ignore the problem at our peril.
TK Chua is an FMT reader.
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