Taxi hirers: Good relief drivers hard to find
CABBY Woo Chong Guan spent 15 years hiring his vehicle from a taxi firm and renting it out to a relief driver after his shifts.
But finding such drivers did not prove easy and it was this burden - together with concern for his health - that prompted the 52-year-old to become a relief driver himself in May last year.
Last week, the National Taxi Association suggested increasing the pool of 10,000 relief drivers in an effort to meet improved standards being set by the Land Transport Authority, which wants to ensure enough cabs are on the road at peak times. This move would see more "two-shift" taxis on the road virtually round the clock.
However, Mr Woo, who is on the road from 7am to 7pm every day except Sunday, said finding reliable partners to work with is not easy. "It's a give-and-take relationship," he said. "Sometimes there are misunderstandings."
Some cabbies run over their time when they take more passengers at the end of a shift. Others complain their partners do not pump enough petrol into the cab when they hand it over, he said.
In June, the LTA set up a website to match hirers with relief drivers but by the end of October, it had only made 48 matches.
From January to September, the proportion of two-shift taxis on Singapore's roads was 56 per cent, up from about 50 per cent in that period last year.
Typically, a cab on a single shift is on the road from eight to 12 hours a day, while those with a relief driver can be on the move for up to 24 hours.
National Taxi Association adviser Ang Hin Kee says more can be done to increase the pool of relief drivers. As of August, there were about 98,620 taxi drivers' vocational licence holders.
"It's good that LTA portal can give some supplementary help," said Mr Ang, MP for Ang Mo Kio GRC. "But at the end of the day, it falls back on the owner of the vehicle to find a better solution,"
He has called for a review of the taxi business model, whereby operators rent out their cabs. The seven taxi operators here own about 27,000 vehicles altogether.
With the existing model, hirers are in a poorer bargaining position because they bear the full burden of finding relief drivers to share the vehicle's rental cost, he said.
There is also the hassle of finding drivers near their homes, working out private agreements, and settling disputes.
"Cab companies can be more proactive in helping all drivers take part-ownership of the vehicles instead of leaving it to hirers," he said. "It's not about put- ting more cabs on the road, but making each cab work harder."
A spokesman for the LTA said it will look into NTA's suggestion to increase the relief drivers pool.
Mr Zali Abu, 52, a cabby for more than 20 years, works closely with four relief drivers. "I'm quite easy-going. They just need to keep the vehicle clean, pump the petrol and pay the rental," he said. "But I've heard of cases where hirers are fussy and end up quarrelling with their partners."
Some cabbies prefer to work solo. Cabby C.S. Lee, 57, said: "Maybe they want to go home to rest and come out to drive again during the peak hours."