The Big Read in short: What a rapidly shrinking taxi industry mean for older drivers, commuters

The entrance of ride-hailing applications such as Uber and Grab back in 2013 and 2014 respectively was met with derision by many taxi drivers like Mr Oh, who felt they had lost business to the new entrants.

While he used to pick up only about seven passengers a day before using the application, he now picks up about 12 passengers a day. Mr Goh estimated that he could be earning more had he switched over to the ride-hailing platforms, or had concurrently used the ride-hailing applications on the job, which taxi drivers are allowed to do. Still, he has no regrets because of his familiarity with driving a taxi without having to depend on the apps.

While younger taxi drivers are generally more willing to adapt to new technology such as ride-hailing applications or are willing to accept customers on multiple ride-hailing platforms, older drivers — those aged 60 and above — are generally more accustomed to “old-school” methods such as accepting flagdown rides, or bidding for jobs on their taxi terminals.

According to data from Statistics Singapore and the Land Transport Authority website, the number of taxis here fell by about half between 2014 and 2022. Over the same period, the number of private hire vehicles increased by more than threefold. Other than having the unique ability to accept street-hail rides, taxis drivers are also able to tap on all the benefits of ride-hailing firms, such as to use their applications.

While the taxi and private-hire car firms that TODAY reached out to all declined to reveal the proportion of drivers aged 60 and above, then-Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan gave a breakdown of these drivers by age group in a parliamentary reply in 2019. Earlier this month, Transport Minister S Iswaran said that the number of active taxi and private hire car drivers hadResponding to TODAY’s queries, LTA said that the number of active taxi drivers fell from 24,700 in November 2020, to 21,300 in June 2022.

Average daily rides subsequently increased gradually to a peak of 596,000 in April this year, as Covid-19 restrictions were lifted, but then fell slightly to 581,000 in June, nearly the same as the average number of daily rides in January last year. There were 447,000 such rides on an average day in January 2021, and this increased to a peak of 488,000 rides for April this year, followed by 471,000 rides for June.Amid the disruptions to the industry, many taxi drivers have decided to go with the flow, by either crossing over to these ride-hailing platforms, or do both taxi and ride-hailing services concurrently.

The framework also allows taxi drivers to sign up with any ride-hailing firms to provide fixed-fare rides. Mr Tan, a taxi driver for 32 years, said that he had initially resisted signing up with any ride-hailing firms and downloading their applications to get more passengers. Such is the case for 61-year-old Loy Chit See, a manufacturing executive who takes the taxi two to three times a week either to his workplace or to run errands.

“I belong to the baby boomer generation, we are not savvy with all this… there’s quite a number of people like me who don’t have these mobile applications.” SUSS’ Assoc Prof Theseira said that while older drivers cannot be seen as a homogenous group, there may be some who are more used to the street-hail and taxi stand business, as well as drivers who have over the years settled into patterns of searching for passengers.

However, she added that a larger issue for the firm is that when taxi demand plunged during the height of the pandemic, many drivers had left the industry.

One will always remember how they turned on the “Busy” signal to wait for an “On-call”, and how they magically disappeared before the midnight surcharges kicked in. To them, too bad so sad.

2 routes to highway from my place. A little longer straight to highway or shorter but lots of traffic lights and zebra crossings. My experience tells me taxi will choose multiple stopping route, private cars never fail to go longer with little stop. They have themselves to blame

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The Big Read: As the sun goes down on the taxi industry, some adapt while others risk being left behindSINGAPORE — Having been a taxi driver for 28 years, 63-year-old Anthony Oh was accustomed to the “traditional” means of picking up passengers — either by waiting at taxi stands, or by picking up riders hailing cabs on the street. One will always remember how they turned on the “Busy” signal to wait for an “On-call”, and how they magically disappeared before the midnight surcharges kicked in. To them, too bad so sad. The entrance of ride-hailing applications was met with derision by many taxi drivers who felt they had lost business to the new entrants.
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