Driving a cab is not really a nurturing type of relationship. You take people and they tip you, they may not tip you, you don’t know their names, they don’t care about you, you don’t care about them.
– Pam Grier, American actress
My stints as a taxi driver in the Klang Valley and having written hundreds of published letters on cabbies enabled me to chronicle the local taxi industry over the past decades and see what the future holds.
I was a tourist guide cum limousine driver from 1973 to 1975, and the largest limousines were American sedans with 5-litre engines. These gas-guzzlers started to disappear like dinosaurs in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis.
From 1976 to 1999, I served in various management positions that included setting up several car rental businesses from scratch. The vehicles could be hired for a day or more, but I preferred renting them on monthly basis to multinational corporations for use by their expats.
In 2000, I left corporate life, attended a short course, passed all tests and obtained a public service vehicle (PSV) licence to drive taxi. I rented an Enviro 2000, a custom-built taxi based on the Renault Espace chassis and licensed as premier taxi with registration HB 4400.
From 2002, I switched to another premier taxi with registration HWB 3888. The model was the same but from a cab company offering a rental-purchase scheme. With a perfect seating position and rear air-suspension, the Enviro was a joy to drive and even better than the latest MPV models.
The starting fare for premier taxis were RM3, RM1 per km and RM16 per hour compared to budget taxis at RM2, RM0.66 and RM8 respectively. While most premier taxi drivers preferred to wait indefinitely at 5-star hotels, I had no patience and chose to cruise for passengers.
I could collect more than RM9, 000 in fares a month and many drivers based at hotels exceeded RM10, 000, and fuel was 68 sen per litre for natural gas for vehicle (NGV). But the glorious days for taxi drivers did not last long and many were badly affected by the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak from November 2002.
In 2003, I gave up driving taxi and took up an offer from one of my former bosses to start a car rental business. I left a year later to allow the staff that I have recruited and trained to run the business. I then sourced a budget taxi from a cab company and operated it for six years.
During this six-year period, I was also running a tourism school and started a golf tour company which is still actively involved in staging the annual World Amateur Golfers’ Championship. In 2007, my first letter “Revise taxi fares to benefit all” was published in a newspaper.
I proposed that budget taxi starting fares be increased from RM2 to RM3, RM0.66 per km to RM1, and RM8 per hour to RM12. In 2009, budget taxi fares were increased to RM3, RM0.87 and RM17.14 respectively.
In 2013, I proposed that budget taxi fares be increased to RM1.25 per km and RM24 per hour, a rise of 44 percent and 40 percent respectively, to ensure the rates are sustainable over the next few years. In 2015, the fares were increased to RM1.25 per km and RM25 per hour and higher for TEKS1M.
But the fare hike came too late for cabbies as passengers have switched over to Uber in droves after UberX entered the Malaysian market in August 2014 with RM1.50 as starting fare, RM12 per hour and 55 sen per km, followed by MyTeksi also offering cheaper private cars.
Unlike cabbies out to earn a living, Uber and Grab were only interested to capture market share as customer data is worth much more than profits. Although Uber exited from Southeast Asia last year to cut losses, it still registered a massive US$5.2 billion loss in the second quarter of this year.
Earlier in August 2016, the Cabinet approved the Taxi Industry Transformation Programme (TITP) with 11 programmes that included regulating e-hailing service, granting taxi permits and RM5, 000 cash grants to individuals that qualify.
In March 2009, I wrote “Giving permits to taxi drivers can’t solve major problems”. That year, large numbers of permits were issued to taxi companies and individuals. Although taxi fares were increased in August, cabbies earned less because the market was flooded with metered taxis.
Since 2014, smarter taxi drivers have switched to driving private cars as passengers preferred cheaper e-hailing rates. Those opting for convenience and hoping that passengers would use taxi service may not be earning enough to pay for the car loan.
In future, self-driving cars will replace taxis and e-hailing drivers.
The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the New Sarawak Tribune.
