So after Minister Khaw took up his post as Minister of Transport, one of the biggest news to come out was that the Ministry would be looking to review the private car sharing apps. However, if you just read the headlines and the news excerpt, it doesn’t say much. You would need to read Minister Khaw’s blog post to understand better. I feel his views are actually rather balanced. However, he seems to lack in-depth knowledge about how private sharing apps work and hence, the lack of detailed thoughts. 3rd party booking apps is a complex problem by itself. On one hand, it helps alleviates our current taxi congestion issue, on the other hand, there might be insufficient checks and balances on both the corporates (uber and grabtaxi), as well as on the drivers. Taxi services in Singapore is quite a unique one. Compared to most developed cities, taxi is actually decently affordable for the masses. Then you have the big confusing surcharges and what not. Another interesting characteristic of the taxi service in Singapore is that it is largely driven by people who tend to be older and more likely semi retired. The result of this is there is a mismatch of supply and demand at various times. During our peak hours, there is high demand, and although the supply is high, it seems to be insufficient. After all, if there are 100 passengers that need a ride at 8am, and there are only 80 vehicles, then it goes to say that 20 passengers would have to wait for a vehicle to complete a trip before they can get a ride. Given that peak hour demand tends to be directional (ie, from suburbs to town areas in the morning, and town to suburbs in the evening.), it is a tough incentive for a driver to want to drive from Raffles Place all the way back to Woodlands to pick a passenger at 8am, particularly when he could get a passenger at Outram or...
read more
Earlier on I was writing about the viability of salaried taxi drivers in Singapore, and it prompted quite a bit of discussion on my friend’s facebook. There were quite a number of comments, largely concerning whether taxi drivers will choose the salaried route vs the current, and that once you paid taxi drivers a fixed salary, they would become lazy. Ironically, when you think about it, both of these concerns are exactly the opposite. To me though, the devil is always in the details. Thus, I spent a bit of time thinking about it, and drafted a brief remuneration structure as follows below. The idea of course, is how do you pay a basic salary, yet with enough incentive for them to work hard. At the same time, we are trying to enhance the current taxi industry in Singapore, so certain aspects of that must be taken in consideration. To me, modelling a remuneration structure after similar systems in stock broking, banking sales, and other forms of salaried sales role might be an interesting starting point. You have a low basic salary, a quarterly performance bonus, and an annual quality bonus. Proportion There are many industries where there are salaried sales people, and self employed agents. Examples are stock broking (around 15% salaried, 85% self employed), insurance (probably closer to only 10% salaried) and property (also around 10-15% salaried). Thus, I would imagine the same can apply here. The existing remuneration system can be kept for those who chose the self employed route. Currently, they have to take a vocational license course, put a $1k security deposit, and pay a daily rental of around $70-120 for the taxi. They get to keep all earnings and they have access to cheaper fuel. As an employee, they would have to go through a typical interview and selection process. Whereas in the self employed model, almost anybody can become a taxi driver if they pay for their own license, course and deposit. Employees will also have the...
read more
I was reading an article in the newspapers about “Raising surcharges won’t make cabbies drive longer” and it set my mind thinking. The crux of the article is that raising surcharge will not make taxi drivers drive longer, simply because they may not be incentivised primarily by money. Taxi drivers in Singapore are typically self employed. That is, they rent a vehicle from the taxi company for a fixed cost. Then it’s up to them how hard working they want to be. Most of the time though, taxi drivers in Singapore tend to take a flexible approach to their work. If family matters come first, they will prioritise that. Currently, there are already surcharges implemented through various means. Location based surcharge to encourage taxi drivers to go to a certain region/location. Time based surcharge to encourage drivers to be more active during peak hiring hours. Even then, these are implemented in various mechanisms such as peak hour surcharge, midnight surcharge, etc. Often, when a taxi driver hits his profit target for the day, they will tend to take it easy. Maybe enjoy a coffee with some friends, or run personal errands with the taxi. In a personal/individual basis, it might make sense. But on a system basis, it degrades the reliability and service quality of the public transport system. Let’s not forget taxi is a form of public transport. The Land Transport Authority has recently mandated that 70% of a taxi fleet must cover 250km in a day. Even so, it is not likely to solve anything, but it adds more frustration into the system. 250km is simply 83km/h for 3 hours. I would imagine a typical active driver would cover more than that. But what it does is make ‘self employed’ people feel restricted on principle. So what next? A mandate of 500km? 750km? In the article, the writer suggested having drivers with fixed salary and bonuses for good performances. Pondering about it, it actually sounds like a good idea! Of course, the idea...
read more
I recently came across a pretty interesting article and it definitely resonates with me.. In short, it was about why we see so much unhappiness and social unrest in the last few years. In the beginning, he talks about happiness. Happiness = Reality – Expectation That’s one of the most amazing way of describing happiness I’ve seen! Essentially, it just means if what you get in life, is more than what you expect, you are generally happy. He gave quite a bit of analogy and context after that, but the short story is, as above. Happiness = Reality – Expectation. He later goes on to talk about the 3 facts about the Gen Y GYPSY. That they are wildly ambitious, delusional, and constantly taunted. How true! In the current generation, our parents have worked hard and attained decent success. As such, a lot of parents tell their kids that they are special, and that they should pursue their passion, etc. This gives a false sense of idealism and that the world is all rosy. To top it off, social media has made it easy for people to share their ideal self. Every week, you would see someone partying, or someone flying off for a holiday, or someone buying a new car/house. People tend to present the best of themselves publicly, and we consume all these in envy. All these adds up to raise our own expectation. Do read the whole article here. To me, the last advice is the best. Ignore everyone else. Other people’s grass seeming greener is no new concept, but in today’s image crafting world, other people’s grass looks like a glorious meadow. The truth is that everyone else is just as indecisive, self-doubting, and frustrated as you are, and if you just do your thing, you’ll never have any reason to envy...
read more
And so the vote counting just ended and the results announced. Worker Party’s Lee Li Lian got 16,038 votes vs People Action Party’s Koh Poh Koon who got 12,856 votes. The other 2 candidates were fairly insignificant with Reform Party’s Kenneth Jeyaretnam’s 353 votes and Singapore Democratic Alliance’s Desmond Lim with 168 votes. The by-election was called when PAP’s Michael Palmer resigned after his extramarital affair came to be known. I would have to say I was a little surprised at the margins that WP won though. However, if you did look at the sentiments in the last couple of years, both in Singapore and Internationally, there are elements of social unrest everywhere. Everybody just wants change. In Singapore, this resulted in an opposition party winning a GRC for the first time in the GE2011. The problem with this is what I call the government paradox. In a stable system, the government is meant to instil confidence in that it is able to lead. As much as people realise that no solution is perfect, there is some form of compromise for the greater good. However, when a political party start to lose confidence votes, there is a growing need to address this and commonly, these are not long term solutions, but more of short term patches. Examples of these could be fixing immediate concerns such as housing issues, foreigner issues, transportation issues, or even general vote buying and promises. As much as it seems like it is the thing to do, the result can actually be counter-productive! The case of proactive VS reactive In management and leadership, it’s always been said that a leader is someone that has to have foresight and be proactive. A weak leader is reactive and only reacts to things that they see. In the recent incidents, the PAP government is seen as being reactive. When something happens, they come out and patch it. Housing prices going crazy? Flood the markets with supply. Implement cooling measures. Restrict property transactions. The same...
read more
Some of you may know, I work in the financial industry, and I usually write emails to some people for their reading entertainment. Here’s one that I wrote a while back, on my outlook of 2012. Originally sent out 26 December 2011. One of the things I wanted to do for this email was to amalgamate some of the views I have as well as others that I have discussed with. In a way, a snippet of things that happened this year, and what it means for the year ahead. That is, the outlook for 2012. 2011, the watershed year 2011 has definitely been a watershed year in more ways than one. We have the General Elections, we have Orchard Road floodings, we have MRTs breaking down dramatically, we have numerous dead bodies found in reservoirs, we have a new record price for properties, we have our 2 Integrated Resorts, numerous new shopping malls and numerous new office buildings in the CBD. We also have Lee Kuan Yew leaving active politics. In a way, 2011 is really extraordinary. How can so many things happen in the same year? Suay? Heng? Or is the world really ending in 2012? Complacency is a downfall of the Singapore model? Some of the viewpoints I have been hearing about is if the Singapore model is good to go for the next decade? In the last 10 years, the biggest issue in Singapore was.. no issue. We have taken a lot of things for granted. Things were meant to work. Jobs will be available as long as you studied to the best of your ability. We will always have housing, we will always have cheap transport, we will have accessibility to anything you want to buy. This has also affected the policy makers. Why fix things if there is nothing broken? Thus, I would say the last 5 years has been one of complacency. There has been some lack of foresight and planning. After all, you pay senior management primarily...
read more
