Singapore boasts one of the best public transport systems in the world.
Suffice to say, our taxi and private-hire car services are as revered as our mass transportation services. After all, we love Grab and Gojek.
Survey Shows Commuter Satisfaction
As part of a continuing trend from two previous years, commuters gave “high scores” for taxi and private-hire car services in 2021, according to the Public Transport Council on Friday (4 Feb).
In case you were wondering what “high scores” entail, results from the latest “Point-to-Point (P2P) Transport Services Customer Satisfaction Survey” has just been released.
The council said that P2P services received a mean satisfaction score of 8.4 in 2021, tying with the 2020 results and beating the 2019 score of 8.1.
These satisfaction scores are out of ten, with the maximum score being that commuters are “Very Satisfied”.
Since many factors determine the quality of transport, the survey made commuters poll on the following service attributes:
- Waiting time
- Ease of booking
- Service information
- Ride comfort
- Driver’s route knowledge
- Customer service provided by the driver
- Service safety
- Taxi stand accessibility (for taxis only)
What Do The Results Say?
For taxis, “safety” and “route knowledge” topped the list. Despite slight decreases in scores for “waiting time” and “taxi stand accessibility”, the fact remains that taxis were more satisfactory across all attributes, compared to private-hire cars.
For private-hire cars, “waiting time” was the factor least satisfactory. Taking the lowest score across all the other attributes, it dropped to 7.6 in 2021 from 7.8 in 2020. Scores for “customer service” also fell short, at 7.8 out of 10.
Scores aside, the Public Transport Council has insights into our choice of transport. It mentioned that the survey showed pricing to be a key factor in our verdict between taxis and private-hire cars.
“Apart from pricing, some commuters indicated that they chose taxis over PHCs (private-hire cars) due to availability, safety and driver’s knowledge of the route,” said the Public Transport Council.
“Meanwhile, other commuters highlighted that they preferred PHCs over taxis due to ease of use of apps, ease of payment and its rewards system.”
For this survey, 3,300 taxi and private-hire car users were polled, and they use these services often — at least three times per week.
Taxi Fares To Increase
As much as we harbour lots of love for our taxis, they may be some dismay involved; taxi fares are expected to increase by March 2022. This comes after the last fare adjustment back in 2011.
You can read more about it here.
Read Also:
- Taxi Fares Expected to Increase by March 2022
- Nee Soon MP K Shanmugam Responds to Footage of Elderly Man Trying to Crawl into a Taxi
- Woman Berated Taxi Driver Coz His Rear Mirror Was ‘At Her Breast’
Feature Image: joyfull/ Shutterstock.com