The $3 city surcharge - added last December to taxi fares for rides starting in the city between 5pm and midnight on weekdays and Saturdays - has drawn taxis into the city area.

The queues at shopping centres such as Ngee Ann City and Centrepoint, once a bane of commuters, have vanished. Instead, the queues have moved to the city fringe.

One of the affected places is Great World City along Kim Seng Road. The mall's spokesman, Ms Jenny Ng, said fewer taxis had come by since the new fares went into effect, but the taxi supply situation was 'still manageable'.

Waiting time during the peak evening hours is about 10 minutes.

The management has not received complaints from shoppers but it could be because the mall runs a shuttle service to Orchard Road, City Hall and Chinatown. This bus comes by every 20minutes.

At VivoCity along HarbourFront Walk, long queues start forming at around 8.30pm. A Straits Times check at 8.45pm on two weekday nights found about 50 people in the queue.

The wait was, on average, 16 minutes; a few taxis arrived every five to seven minutes. Several people were seen calling for cabs.

Asked whether fewer taxis had been stopping by since the surcharge kicked in, VivoCity said it had not seen a difference, even if some shoppers have.

Customer service officer Valerie De Silva, 26, who goes there at least once a week, said the waiting time last year was not more than a few minutes. Now, it is 15 to 20minutes.

Like Great World City, VivoCity offers its shoppers an alternative to waiting: From Fridays to Sundays and on public holidays, SMRT runs a limo service at a flat $35 for up to seven passengers headed for a single destination from the mall.

The Land Transport Authority said the new city surcharge has shortened waiting times at at least five fringe taxi stands, mostly near Orchard Road.

Between 5pm and 11pm, the average waiting time at the Far East Plaza taxi stand is three minutes, compared to 14minutes before the fare increase.

Over at Sim Lim Square, waiting time has also come down to three minutes, from 17; at Liat Towers, it is now five minutes, down from nine.

Farther up the Orchard Road strip, at Tanglin Shopping Centre and Orchard Towers, average waiting times are now two to three minutes, down from four minutes and six minutes respectively before December.

mariaa@sph.com.sg