Take me for a [cheap] ride...

Lion City does it again! Another "notable" record of proving, once again, our world-class transport system is very affordable.

A Land-transport system research team in the NU of S published a report (12 June 2005), suggesting that after a comparison across 10 Asian cities, the taxi fares in here are 'very cheap' and 'there maybe room for a fare increase'.

To substantiate their findings, they released the following statistics:




While I haven't been to all 10 cities listed, I am no stranger to KL; and I find it hard to believe that a 10km journey in KL city would cost USD6.00! If I remember correctly, a cab ride from Jalan Petaling to Batu Caves (about 10km) costs about RM14.00, which is roughly USD3.70.

If you look at the second table that lists the average monthly family income, did you notice that a Singapore couple could take home, on the average, USD3088 a month or S$5175! I seriously question the validity of this figure. It seems unrealistically high! Is this the total disposable income after CPF deductions? I would assume it is since the study was trying to estimate what portion of the monthly salary is spent on taxi fares. For a combined take home pay of 5K a month, considering present job market conditions, the couple are most probably at least degree holders with 2-3 years experience (I may be overly optimistic here). Now does this mean that the average workforce in Lion City are degree holders?

Statistics like these are most often misleading than informative. Especially when it comes to using averages. Average salary may seem to be a fair estimator of wealth but few people realise that a couple of super-high income earners included in the survey would skew the entire data set and shift the average abnormally high. Without including other vital information (like max, min or median), the reader is definitely taken for a ride.

Afterall, there is wisdom in the phrase 'Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is suggestive. What they conceal is vital.'

By the way, another weird observation in the above table. Did you notice there's an Asian city by the chinese name of '首尔'? I cannot seem to recall which city could this be, that has an average income of USD2.8K? Until I tried to pronounce the word in English; I could not believe there are such idiotic, worse-than-half-past-six translation skills - Did they mean SEOUL??????

是那个猪头那么没水准? 可怜贵为亚洲四小龙之一的韩国首都-汉城-竟被这种三脚猫和半咸不淡翻译功夫糟蹋! 奇怪的是怎么没把东京译成'都鸡油' (Tokyo)?