1. The Land Transport Authority’s (LTA) third annual Taxi Customer Satisfaction Survey (TCSS) found that 97.3% of respondents were satisfied with taxi services in 2015. This is a slight dip of 0.8 percentage points from 98.1%[1] in 2014, but is higher than 2013 (see Figure 1 below).
Figure 1 – Satisfaction level recorded by TCSS from 2013 -2015
2. There was an increase in perception that the overall quality of taxi services has improved (see Figure 2 below).
Figure 2 –
Commuters’ perception on whether quality of taxi services has improved in the past year
Highlights of TCSS 2015
3. Similar to previous surveys, taxi commuters were surveyed on eight key service attributes: driver’s knowledge of routes, safety of taxi services, taxi stand accessibility, customer service, ease of taxi booking, ride comfort, waiting time, and information on taxi services. Safety continued to be the attribute that taxi commuters were most concerned about, and were also most satisfied with.
4. Ease of taxi booking showed the most improvement, from 88.6% in 2014 to 91.3%. This could be due to the entry of third-party taxi booking services[2] and efforts by taxi companies to improve their taxi booking apps and call booking services.
Measures to Improve Taxi Services
5. From the survey, commuters feel that taxi services could be further improved in the areas of taxi waiting times and information on taxi services, which continued to have the widest gap between expectations and satisfaction.
Taxi Waiting Times
6. The service gap for taxi waiting times remained the widest amongst all attributes in 2015, but it has shown an encouraging trend of continued improvement for the second consecutive year. This could be due partly to measures such as the increased taxi availability[3], and also the increasing availability of private hire car services such as Uber and GrabCar.
7. Three in five respondents (61.3%) indicated that the Taxi Availability Framework has helped to improve access to taxi services.
Taxi Service Information
8. Commuter satisfaction with the availability of taxi service information declined from 93% in 2014 to 86.6% in 2015.
Updating the Scope of the TCSS
9. To take into account the evolving nature of on-demand, point-to-point transport options in Singapore, we will review the scope of the TCSS to also cover customer satisfaction with third-party taxi booking applications and private hire car services in next year’s survey. In addition, LTA is finalising the review of private hire car services after a series of engagements with key stakeholders. More details will be made known in the coming weeks.
Annex: Details of TCSS 2015
[1] The overall satisfaction index for 2014 has been adjusted from 96.2% to 98.1%, due to a different methodology used by the previous survey vendor, which under-calculated the overall satisfaction index. All other statistics in TCSS 2014 and TCSS 2013 were not affected.
[2] LTA introduced the Third-Party Taxi Booking Service Providers framework towards the end of 2015 to safeguard commuters’ interests and ensure the providers comply with basic regulations. http://www.lta.gov.sg/apps/news/page.aspx?c=2&id=193b3496-9acd-4473-833e-b2b5d2bf5eaa
[3] Since the introduction of the Taxi Availability standards in January 2013, the percentage of taxis on the roads during peak hours has increased from about 82.4% in 2012 to 90.8% in 2015. This means over 2,000 more taxis are now available to commuters during peak hours.
