SG authorities hold meeting regarding cross-border transport

Just recently, Acting Minister for Transport (MOT) Jeffrey Siow, Senior Minister of State for transport Sun Xueling, as well as others from MOT and LTA, met with representatives from the National Taxi Association, the National Private Hire Vehicles Association, and the Singapore-JB Taxi Association, to discuss how cross-border point-to-point transport can be regularised to meet the needs of Singaporean commuters, provide opportunities for local drivers, and keep out illegal vehicles.

This comes off the back of a recent combined operation by LTA and ICA to nab drivers offering illegal ride-hailing services to and from Malaysia within Singapore.

In a Facebook post, LTA mentioned that during the meeting, it was recognised that there is a demand that the current cross-border taxi service is unable to meet, such as large families with young children, and that there are Singaporeans willing to pay for these services as well as those who are keen to serve this demand.

Currently, taxis under this scheme are only allowed to pick up and drop off passengers at a designated point in Singapore (Ban San Street Terminal) and Malaysia (Larkin Sentral in Johor Bahru).

Agreeing that the current scheme can benefit from improvements like designating more pick-up and drop-off points, the participants discussed expanding it to allow for higher quotas and larger capacity vehicles, as well as partnering with platform companies for app-based bookings.

The importance of enforcement was also talked about, including the use of location tracking to prevent illegal trips by cross-border taxis within Singapore, such as via ERP2.0. As such, LTA also said that it would sustain enforcement efforts against foreign vehicles that flout Singapore's laws.