How about lowering the taxi-booking fee?

I HAVE noticed that the taxi queues at major malls in town tend to be extremely long even on weekday evenings.

The passengers at the end of the queue are frequently seen calling for taxis on their mobile phones in order to escape the agony of queuing behind 15 other passengers.

And so, more often than not, taxis that pull up at that particular taxi stand display the 'on-call' sign and those at the head of the queue get even more exasperated.

I understand that Singapore already has a lot of taxis plying the roads of our small island, but why do we still see shortages?

It seems like taxis in town have no shortage of customers, but these customers have end destinations in suburban areas. When the taxis drop off their customers in suburban areas, they have to drive around aimlessly before they find a fare that hopefully directs them to town. When all else fails, they have to head back to town with an empty car, wasting petrol and time.

Many people have suggested that taxi fares be increased in order to curb this shortage. However, this is not an ideal solution as it may price taxis out of the reach of the ordinary man on the street. The resultant decrease in demand would also put many taxi drivers out of business.

One solution that surfaced while I was discussing this problem with a friend is to:

(1) Raise the fee charged upon boarding to $3 or even $3.50

(2) Drop the fee for calling taxis to $1 or even less

The current scenario of passengers wanting to take cabs where there aren't any and drivers cruising around aimlessly in empty taxis can be improved through such a system.

If the pricing system encourages most, if not all, passengers to dial for taxis, the cabbies will know where to find their customers. Passengers will also have much shorter waiting times and everyone is better off.

One drawback of this solution is that taxi operators may face an unmanageable increase in demand for 'on-call' taxis.

I feel that this can be solved by automating the cab booking system, such that passengers can use SMS to call for a cab and get a confirmation of their booking through SMS.