Debated in Parliament on 4 Nov 2014.
Mr Pritam Singh asked the Minister for Transport whether sharing economy taxi applications such as Uber are a potential means to address peak hour taxi demand and the difficulty of getting a taxi during inclement weather and, if not, how does LTA plan to address the rise of such sharing economy enterprises.
Mdm Speaker, third party taxi booking applications provide commuters and taxi drivers with an additional means of making and accepting taxi bookings. They facilitate more efficient matching of taxis with commuters as they can source for available taxis from more than one taxi company. However, they do not increase the supply of taxis per se and, hence, will not help the situation if availability of supply is the constraint during peak hours and inclement weather. The taxi availability framework we introduced last year will still be necessary.
Third party taxi booking applications are currently allowed to operate in Singapore without regulation. However, to protect the safety and interests of commuters, some basic regulations may be required. LTA is currently studying this.
Madam, two supplementary questions for the Senior Minister of State. The first is that the Minister for Transport recently spoke in Parliament about the piloting of a taxi information trial system to monitor the real time demand of taxis. Can I enquire if the sharing economy companies or the taxi application companies are part of this trial, as they would have collected quite a lot of data that can be instructive for LTA to better calibrate the number of taxis on the road, or to explore, potentially allowing private cars with the requisite insurance and safety requirements for the public, for example, to make up the shortfall of demand during peak hours in particular? Secondly, are there any plans to review the taxi quality of service standards in the light of third party taxi applications?
Mdm Speaker, in response to the Member's first question, the answer is, yes. We make use of all available data, including those that are available through
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the taxi companies.
In response to his second question on whether there are plans to review the quality of service standards that taxi companies are currently required to meet, what Mr Pritam has highlighted is the fact that when we have these third party applications, it could affect the taxi companies' ability to fulfil those quality of service standards and it is, therefore, relevant for us to take a look at whether these third party applications impact the quality of service standards being met. So, we would take a look at the data first before coming to a decision.
PAPERCUTS