3rd World Standard Taxi Service At Sim Lim Square Taxi Stand
Yesterday night it’s suppose to be an exciting night as I decided to invest $439 for a powerful Asus (Intel Atom) Eee Box at Sim Lim Square Level 4 with some great specification.
The Asus Eee Box is approximately the size of my Eee Pc 8GB but it has quite a good resolution when I attached my 19″ Monitor to it. just now…1440 by 900 pixels at 32 bits highest resolution and there is no lag at all.
- Microsoft Windows XP Home
- Intel Chipset
- Intel Atom N270 (1.6 GHz)
- DDR2 SO-DIMM 1 GB
- 80 GB
- SD/SDHC/MS/MS Pro/MMC
- 802.11n (WIFI)
- Here comes the complain…after I purchase the Asus Eee Box at Sim Lim Square, I realized it’s drizziling slightly and I felt it’s almost necessary to take the taxi instead of walking all the way to the Bugis MRT with my Eee Box exposed to the rain even though I have an umbrella (a really small one).
So go around Sim Lim Square and found the taxi stand filled with half drenched tourists (Golden hair, silver hair and China speaking tourist). It was 9.25pm then.
I curiously waited at the queue and then suddenly the queue became a long line of people and it started to rain more heavily.
Patiently I waited like 20 minutes but the queue still not shorten at all. There are lot’s of taxis that zoomed in only after many people from BEHIND booked them by calling the taxi companies.
It was then it dawned on me that EMPTY Taxis are zooming passed on the other road AVOIDING this taxi stand!!! It’s like they are circling the prey like vultures and once the prey given up waiting…called the taxi companies…the “vulture” taxi zoomed in from VERY near by at almost no time at all.
I waited for another 30 minutes drenched in wind blown rain onto my Asus Eee Box and saw sadly many tourist suffered even worst.
I gave up when the rain stopped, and walked towards the Bugis MRT. I filmed at least 3 empty taxi in one swift 5 minutes zooming passed without a hint of turning towards to the taxi stand.
This makes me very angry, had the call booking system been exploited by the taxi drivers? This experience clearly shown that we Singaporean are so “clever” that we schemed and exploit loop holes of the system to earn more money.
Here’s some of my suggestions! (Haha)
- Put up a super NEON or LED Signs on the road to indicate that there IS a taxi stand nearby.
- Their Taxi should have a customised GPS system that locate the NEAREST Taxi stand to service.
- Put a new Premium Taxi Stand that pays the same rate as those who call taxi company to book taxi at a higher fees.
- Put a high resolution Night Vision CCTV catching any empty taxis that ZOOM Passed the taxi stand without reasons. Summon them the usual warning letters before 2nd time pay cut and the 3rd time suspension.
- Remove call booking surcharges and make them “SAME PRICE” as any flagged down taxi or those in the taxi stand. It should be a service to let taxi find customer easier instead of customer finding taxi…so shouldn’t be chargable at all.
- Online Customer Survey form website URL address at ALL taxi stand so that they can feedback in real time with 3G phones like iPhone that can surf the internet. Alternatively they can note down the address and feedback later. (With Taxi License Plate number taken by camera phones or ability to upload VIDEOS like youtube)
The online surveys will grade each taxi companies a “quality” ratings much like those accreditation given to hotels by the number of Stars. LTA should award discounts on road taxes, ERP charges, parking charges, fuel surcharges and etc to those with the highest ratings and penalised those with the lowest ratings.
This will create some kind of “self” awareness amendment to the quality of service of these taxi drivers which does not know that their actions caused great shame to our beloved country in front of all these tourist from around the world.
Any comments welcome!
Categories: Complaints - Singapore
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Anonymous
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Simon Tay