your choice of TAXI.

The cat is out of the bag. Taxi had announced its fare increase structure. Hell of confusing.
Can we see real competitive conditions in place; can the other taxi companies hold their fares?
I’m ready to pick n choose the colour of my taxi. Will the other operators give me the choice? No choice then takes Train. But the “Sardine Effect” in the train’s carriages will be worst then….
Getting to work is a hassle, what a way to start the day.
Some 17000 taxis have all ready to charge the new fare on early. Actions had been taken to adjust their meters before hand, “secretly”. All preparations were done. Just make the announcement and “kill”; oh, there is a 1-week notice. Will they always win?

SMRT, Yellow Tops, TransCab, Premier, SmartCabs, PrimeCabs please hold out for a period, maybe it will be just enough to alter the share of market players?

I only take taxis when it is really necessary, for example, when I am running late, or when I have a lot of things to carry. Otherwise, I take the bus or MRT. Commuters should start treating taxis as a 'last resort' mode of transportation, not a daily transportation. I drive too and I only take the car out when i need, or hop into a cab should the need arise.

I had been taking cab mostly to work, especially when my parent were not at Singapore. Not really because I’m lazy to take a public transport, wasting money; just wanna to see how the respond to the taxi drives, scrolling thought around all neighbourhoods look out for their customers. I finally asked one of the 40s year-old taxi driver who is will to share about the increase fare, whether does it helps on their income.

‘It’s worse! I can’t really have more customers. They may prefer public transport, it’s cheaper.’

‘But you get more fare pay, isn’t it better?’

‘Actually it’s only the matter of more customers with lower fares, or less customers with higher fares. I think it balances up or not, terrible when no one wants to call a cab.’ ‘We just have to listen to our master, the government.’

Well, this move will effectively weed out a whole group of commuters who take cabs on the 'fringe' of affordability example like students, middle-lower income people, and of course people who can't afford the increase.
And with the same supply of taxi, with a smaller demand now, since people are weeded out, the crunch will also be on cabbies as they realise that 'either we earn, or we don't earn; if we aren't going to fight for our passengers, we would not even earn, since there is such a limited and declining demand.' And people only need to take one cab to get to one place; there would be plenty of empty taxis plying the streets again.

Soon we would realise that since there is such a small pool of commuters as prices are high; cabbies would also drop out of the profession, as they aren't earning enough.

Like I said, we do not solve the issue of errant drivers, and in this action of increasing prices, causes effect that were caused by errant drivers. Why so much damage because of one group of people that are causing so many headaches.

You make the choice; will have the choice to pay for the convenience.
To respond to the fare increase, we have options.
As suggested; time management and habit change.

os: My parent came home. Finally.