Fewer cases of taxi and private hire car fare evasion investigated in last three years

SINGAPORE - The Land Transport Authority (LTA) investigated fewer cases of taxi and private hire car fare evasion each year from 2019 to 2021.

Ninety six cases of fare evasion were investigated in 2021, compared to 104 in 2020, said Transport Minister S. Iswaran in a written Parliamentary reply on Tuesday.

There were 233, 269 and 164 cases in 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively.

He said: "For comparison, the total number of taxi and private-hire car trips is about 600,000 per day. That means that 0.00005 per cent of all trips, or one in two million trips, have reported fare evasion."

LTA began to investigate fare evasion among private-hire cars only in 2020 when regulatory framework for such cases was introduced, Mr Iswaran added.

No private hire car cases were investigated that year, while 21 cases were investigated in 2021.

Drivers can report fare evasion incidents to their taxi or ride hailing companies, who will then try to recover the fares on behalf of their drivers, said Mr Iswaran.

If the operators are not successful, these cases can be referred to LTA. Drivers can also call the police for assistance or drive passengers who refuse to pay to the nearest station, he added.

Mr Iswaran was responding to a question from Mr Melvin Yong (Radin Mas) on how prevalent fare evasion was among private-hire car passengers in the past five years, and how easy is it for drivers to report and seek help for such cases from LTA.

The reply came after LTA responded to concerns aired on The Straits Times Forum page on Sept 21 from a private-hire driver, who said he had encountered four cases of fare evasion in 2022, but found it difficult to seek redress.

In its reply on Sept 29, LTA said operators will first attempt to recover fares on behalf of their drivers, and refer the matter to the authorities if they are unable to.

Cases of fare evasion vary in complexity, said LTA. For example, for those where the passengers could not be identified, it would be challenging to track them down to recover the unpaid fares.

Mr Iswaran said on Tuesday that fares were recovered from around 60 per cent of all cases investigated between 2017 and 2021.

During that time, around one in 10 cases investigated resulted in a penalty, he added.

Those who evade fares can be fined up to $1,000. Repeat offenders can be jailed a maximum of six months and fined up to $2,000.

Mr Iswaran said: "We take fare evasion cases for taxi and private-hire car (PHC) services seriously. Passengers who do not pay their fares affect the livelihoods of taxi and PHC drivers."

In a previous parliamentary reply, Mr Iswaran said that since January 2020, the number of active taxi and private-hire car drivers has fallen by 18 per cent to about 57,000 drivers as of June 2022.