TAXIS

Mr Cheo Chai Chen asked the Minister for Communications whether individuals and small companies will be allowed to own taxis.

Mr Mah Bow Tan: The ROV stopped issuing taxi licences to individuals in 1975 because individually-owned taxis were poorly maintained and provided poor service to passengers. Since then, taxi licences were issued to taxi companies only.

Taxi companies are in a better position to capitalise on economies of scale to ensure better maintenance of vehicles and to organise the taxi service to provide a higher quality of service, for example, the provision of capital-intensive radiophone taxi despatch systems.

At present, taxi service is provided by yellow-top taxis and five taxi companies, viz. COMFORT, SABS, Singapore Commuter, SBS Taxis and TIBS Taxis. As announced last year, my Ministry will consider deregulating the taxi industry to allow more operators to provide taxi service after the Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) has been implemented. This will enable us to take into account the impact of ERP on taxi operations.