A RARE technical glitch paralysed the mobile data terminals - necessary for call bookings and cashless payments - of some 800 ComfortDelGro taxis on Wednesday.

From as early as 9am, queues snaked along ComfortDelGro's Sin Ming Drive service centre as cabbies arrived in droves to have the problem fixed.

By 10.30am, traffic police were on hand to direct drivers, as the deluge of cabs in the vicinity was snaring traffic.

Entrances to the Fiat showroom next door and lanes to several workshops in the area were blocked.

Most of the cabbies waited patiently - some for nearly an hour - for their turn, but there were the occasional temper flaring as some drivers jumped queue.

A cabby who would only be known as Mr Lim said: 'When I started my cab this morning, the terminal hung. There was only a message to say to come here.

'This is on our time and money... I don't expect the company to compensate us,' griped a cab driver.

Another cabby, a Mr Omar, said he had heard about the fault from fellow drivers as early as Tuesday night.

A ComfortDelGro spokesman said the problem was due to 'a slight technical glitch' but did not elaborate.

She said only 1 per cent of Comfort's 15,000 taxis was affected.

'Affected taxis have since made their way to our service centre to reset the terminals,' she said at 10am.

When The Straits Times checked at 11am, the queue was close to 500m long.

One visibly upset cabby was overheard saying to a colleague: 'This would never happen back when we were using radio dispatch.'

Comfort said it was investigating the cause of the problem.