the(new)mediaslut

I had to take the taxi yesterday because I was carry a large luggage to the bus terminal for my weekend trip to Kuala Lumpur.

It was one of those rare trips that I boarded a taxi where the driver managed to strike a conversation with me.

In a mix of Mandarin and Hokkien, we conversed about the recent debate about the amount a taxi driver’s daily earnings of SGD318 as announced by Raymond Lim, Minister of State for Transport, in a recent Parliament sitting.

The Today newspaper ran a story how netizens of an Internet forum calculated that the daily takings would total SGD9858 a month.

(Though the Singapore papers are reluctant to give credit to bloggers, Jean of the Simply Jean blog should be credited for her calculations of the monthly earnings.)

I highlighted that paper also clarified that ComfortDelgro corrected its statement and said the SGD318 earned were calculated based on two shifts.

Upon hearing the monthly earnings and ComfortDelgro, the taxi driver roared with uncontrollable laughter and I almost became an accident statistic if the driver didn’t gather composure quickly.

The taxi driver then highlighted that because the new taxi fares have created an over supply of taxi drivers during the peak hours and lower demand, some taxi drivers have taken to make use of the peak hours as a rest period.

The new peak hour surcharges meant taxi drivers get to earn an extra 30% on top of a fixed surcharge.

He highlighted that passengers arn’t stupid. Many has adjusted their timings to take taxi before or after the peak period, thus saving on the extra surcharges.

On the bus to Kuala Lumpur, this conversation got me thinking about Comfort Delgro and how they got into the mess.

Wrote The Straits Times on Jan 22, 2008,

While some cabbies have complained that passengers are not flagging taxis, Mr Lim said their earnings have however gone up.

Based on figures provided by ComfortDelGro, Singapore’s biggest taxi operator, cabbies are pocketing about $11 more a day, earning about $318.

Mr Lim was responding to questions from MP for Tampines GRC Ms Irene Ng and MP for Tanjong Pagar GRC Mr Baey Yam Keng in Parliament.

Technically, a day is made up two shifts, so earnings of SGD318 was correct.

But the statement given by Mr Raymond Lim made it sound as if one taxi driver earned SGD318 per day.

Unless ComfortDelgro has started to hire Cylons as taxi drivers (which maybe something they have not announced), then it would be possible for a taxi drivers to drive two shifts a day for 365 days a year.

Maybe there was a request by the Land Transport Authority to ComfortDelgro for some figures.

An overzealous member of ComfortDelgro might have taken the figures and then passed it to the authorities without thinking of the consequences of the wordings.

Based on this incident, it would be very difficult for readers to believe whatever figures that ComfortDelgro provides to the media or the authorities.

The best way to do it now is via an external auditor to provide figures from this taxi operator.

Another authority that will be caught playing the number games will most likely by IDA in April 2008 when the number of Internet users in Singapore will drop by a cool 1 million users. Then again, the fault has been pointed at Singtel for providing such figures to the authorities.