Taxi Fares in Melaka is Getting Unacceptable

June 23rd, 2008

After the recent fuel price hike that caught most Malaysians by heart attack, many sectors are started to take advantage to increase price of products and services. While inflated prices is expected, but some greedy Malaysians are exploiting this opportunity to gain leaping profits; increasing prices by 30% even though the actual impact is only 5-10%.

Last weekend, I’ve done quick verbal check on taxi fares with some taxis at Melaka Mall and Melaka Sentral. With comparison to the fares that I’ve learned before fuel price hike, the finding shows that most of the taxis surveyed have already increased their so-called “standard fares”, by average of RM1 or RM2, for destinations within Melaka town.

My question is, are these taxis affected by the fuel price hike? Correct me if I’m wrong; from my knowledge, most if not all, of the taxis in Melaka Tengah are already fixed with NGV parts to run on natural gas for vehicle. And the fact is, price of NGV is NOT affected by the recent fuel price! It’s only RM0.635/litre.

On what basis are the taxi operators inflating their fares, when the operating cost remains the same?

Take for example, the taxi fare from Melaka Mall to Bukit Beruang, which is only a journey of about 2.6km, was charged at RM7 (again, according to the so-called “standard rate”). However, after the fuel price hike, the same journey will now cost RM8! This is a lot more expensive than the metered taxis in Kuala Lumpur and Klang Valley. As comparison, for the same distance in KL and Klang Valley, we will only be charged about RM5 by metered taxi.

If the Melaka state government is serious about tourism sector (I’m sure they are), public transport regulation should never be over-looked. After all, to many tourists, public transport is still the main reliance during their stay in Melaka. Can’t the authority take any regulatory measure on this issue? Frankly speaking, personally I find taxi fares in Melaka to be very expensive, and it’s getting unreasonable now. There’s no guideline to follow, but only the so-called standard fares set among the taxi operators in Melaka. They form the “standards”.

To be fair, there are still some reasonable taxi drivers in Melaka. I’ve met some, and experienced some for myself. However, this group of taxi drivers charging reasonable fare, is too few of them. And in most instances, they are not welcomed by other taxi drivers, to offer service at popular places like Melaka Sentral.

Poor Intra-city Bus Routes

Among all the public transport infrastructures in Melaka, Melaka Sentral is the facility that I’m proud of, being a Malaccan. It’s a very comfortable bus terminal, and I would say one of the best in Malaysia.

On the opposite end, intra-city buses are still the poorest public transport infrastructure in Melaka. In order to maximize profit margin, most of the bus operators are planning for 1 route that covers about 20 stops, and end up taking about 30 minutes just to reach a destination.

Imagine this: you need to wait 20 minutes (don’t be surprised there are still many places that require you to wait for 30 minutes) for a bus, and it takes you another 20 minutes to reach a destination in Melaka town. Yet, the destination should only take 5 minutes if better route is available as alternative.

How big is Melaka town? Spending 40 minutes to an hour to reach a destination by public buses, is not really favorable.

Well, I don’t blame the bus operators. They are coming from the profit maximization point of view, which is a normal practice. But I’m sure the government can do something about it to improve public transport efficiency. Isn’t the saving gaining from petrol subsidy withdrawal meant to be invested into improving public transports in Malaysia?

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• Melaka Sentral - Getting to Melaka by Bus
• MATTA Fair Melaka Begins Today
• Nationwide Celebration of Chinese New Year 2007 in Melaka

Entry Filed under: Transportation

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