A Study Somehow Shows That S’pore PHV Drivers Are Safer Than Taxi Drivers

Last Updated on 2019-05-08 , 7:08 pm

Car-hailing apps are pretty popular these days, and private-hire cars are taking centre stage, making taxis obsolete.

And it’s not easy being a private hire driver. Here, take a look at a video we’ve done on the “dangers” of being one:

According to a survey by the Public Transport Council, passengers are much more likely to take private-hire cars than taxis in 2017.

Told ya.

The proportion of passengers taking private-hire cars skyrocketed to 70.5% whereas last year, the proportion of people taking private-hire cars and taxis were equal.

The survey measured the satisfaction level as well where 1,503 people were surveyed in July and August last year.

Satisfaction levels

The survey took into account various attributes to measure the satisfaction level such as waiting time, driver’s knowledge of the route, ride comfort and safety of service provided by the driver.

According to the survey, taxi users were most satisfied with three attributes—safety, driver’s knowledge of route and service information at 97.3%, 96.8% and 94.9% respectively.

Satisfaction with taxi service attributes:

Waiting Time: 92.4%
Ease of Booking: 91.7%
Service Information: 94.9%
Driver’s Knowledge of Route: 95.6%
Service Provided by driver: 96.8%
Safety: 97.3%
Taxi Stand Accessibility: 96.2%

For private-hire car users, they were satisfied with the ease of booking, safety and service information at 97.7%, 97.8% and 94.9% respectively.

Satisfaction with private hire service attributes:

Waiting Time: 95.4%
Ease of Booking: 97.7%
Information: 94.9%
Ride Comfort: 96.0%
Driver’s Knowledge of Route: 95.2%
Service Provided by Driver: 96.8%
Safety: 97.8%

Surprisingly, people find private-hire cars safer by 0.5%.

 

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In a study conducted last year (2017), there’s a surprising result: apparently, commuters in Singapore think that private hire drivers are safer than taxi drivers by 0.5%. Not sure if the results would be different this year, but it sure is interesting to know that private hire drivers aren’t exactly the most dangerous drivers around, eh? Read more in our app. Link in bio. Guy Who’s Driving a Toilet Car: @notzhihao #factoftheday #sgig #sg #singapore #instasg #yoursingapore #sgphoto #singaporean #singaporelife #thisissingapore #instagramsg #igerssingapore #iluvsg #sgdaily #singaporeig #sglocal #sglifestyle #sgbloggers #sgblogger #funfacts #wtffunfacts

A post shared by Goody Feed (@goody.feed) on Nov 24, 2018 at 11:11pm PST

Isn’t that news?

Taxi rides are decreasing

On top of that, the survey also revealed that the number of people who took a point-to-point doubled from 29.6% in 2016 to 41.4% in 2017.

Out of those respondents who took point-to-point rides in the past seven days revealed that they are more inclined to take private-hire cars—from 50% in 2016 to 70.5% in 2017.

Whereas, the number of taxi rides decreased from 50% to 29.5% in 2017.

The survey mentioned that “this could have been due to lower taxi ridership and the availability of more private hire car services”.

Are public transport affected?

With all the breakdowns and whatnots, it is pretty obvious commuters would prefer taking private-hire cars.

The survey mentioned that the reason could be due to the numerous discounts for private-hire cars.

With that said, National University of Singapore transport researcher Lee Der-Horng mentioned that the demand for buses and trains is relatively inelastic.

“The increase in commuters taking taxis and private-hire cars will more likely add to overall transport demand,” he added.

Transport consultant Tham Chen Munn also has a similar point of view, saying that the impact of private-hire cars on other bus and rail ridership “may not be too significant”.

“The greater fight is between the taxis and private-hire cars,” he added.

I mean, at the end of the day, public transport is way cheaper.