Singapore Riders Will Pay More Because of Higher Prices at the Pump
If you are using a ride-share or other such service in Singapore, expect to see some changes to what you’ll be paying for your ride. Two ride-hailing transport platforms are introducing new driver fees and a taxi company is raising fares as April begins. The reason? Higher prices at the pump, fueled by rising global oil prices, are hurting drivers’ incomes.
Grab has announced that starting 1 April 2022, an S$0.50 driver fee will be levied on its riders. The company also announced an additional S$0.50 temporary driver fee for the next two months, ending on 31 May 2022. Apart from Grab, other operators are levying similar charges. All of them cite the accelerating rise in petrol prices as one reason for these fees.
While Grab made an announcement earlier this week about these changes, users of the app got word of the changes yesterday (30 March) in a notice. The company explained in the note that the charges were meant to offset the rising cost of petrol, which has been as much as 25%.
Grab noted that they were pursuing initiatives to help their drivers shoulder this burden. These initiatives are likely to be subsidised by the new driver fee. “As operating costs for our drivers on the road continue to rise,” the statement read, “we have furthered our driver-partner support measures with additional commission rebates and fuel discounts.”
However, Grab said that the temporary additional driver fee will directly go to drivers to assist with costs on their end. The company concluded that it would review these arrangements as developments arise.
Grab is not the only ride-hailing transport platform to levy new fees. In an announcement that came to Tech360.tv’s attention yesterday, Indonesia-based Gojek announced that it too will impose new driver fees. They said the fee would be S$0.50 for all trips less than 10km in distance and S$0.80 for those that will go for 10km or more.
Taxi riders are also seeing fare increases as well. One SG taxi operator, ComfortDelGro, has announced that it will increase both its distanced-timed rates and waiting-time fees. The former will go up by S$0.01 every 400m (and every 350m for trips of 10km or more) and the latter will go up by S$0.01 for every 45 seconds of waiting. The company said that these increases will begin on Monday, 4 April 2022. They cited similar reasons as Grab and Gojek for these fare hikes. They added that these rate increases will be under review and removed if fuel prices go down.
Fuel prices have been seeing a spike lately in Singapore. According to Motorist.sg, a comparison of pump prices shows that diesel prices are hovering around the S$2.80 to 2.90 mark. And across the board, petrol prices are all above S$3.00 with premium petrol more than halfway to the S$4.00 mark.
The site’s price trend chart shows that the present spike began at the start of March 2022 just as the Russia-Ukraine war was breaking out. As world oil prices continue to stabilise, average fuel costs among Singapore’s gas companies are steadily going down. However, an S$0.50 increase in average fuel costs since October 2021 is not good news for drivers. Ride-hailing transport platforms and taxi companies are taking note.
Ride-hailing transport platforms Grab and Gojek announced new driver fees to offset rising fuel costs and the burden these impose on drivers.
Taxi company ComfortDelGro has also announced that they will increase their fares starting on Monday, 4 April 2022 for the same reasons.
Average fuel prices in Singapore have gone up by S$0.50 since October 2021, with a major spike following the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.