4.3 Booking Fees and Upfront Flat Fares for App Bookings

Two Ways to Price an App Booking

When a passenger books a taxi or private hire car through an app rather than hailing on the street, LTA's fare rules recognise two different pricing approaches that a licensed operator may use: a metered fare plus booking fee, or an upfront flat fare shown and confirmed before the trip starts. A TDVL holder needs to recognise which approach applies to a given booking, because what may be charged - and who carries the risk of an unexpectedly long trip - differs sharply between the two.

Booking Fees

A booking fee is a fixed charge added on top of the metered fare (plus any applicable surcharges from Section 4.2) when a passenger books a metered trip through an app or by phone rather than hailing the taxi directly. According to LTA's published fare information:

• The non-peak booking fee is $2.30 for most licensed operators.
• Prime charges a non-peak booking fee of $2.50, slightly higher than most other operators.
• Peak-period booking fees vary by operator. LTA's fare page does not publish one uniform peak booking-fee figure that applies across every operator, so a TDVL holder should check the specific operator's current published fee rather than assume a fixed number.

Booking fees apply regardless of trip distance - they charge for the convenience of booking through the app, separate from the flag-down, distance, and waiting-time components covered in Section 4.1 and the surcharges covered in Section 4.2.

Upfront Flat Fares

Instead of a metered fare plus booking fee, a licensed operator may instead offer an upfront flat fare for an app-booked trip. Under LTA's rules, the flat fare must be shown clearly to the commuter in the app before the booking is confirmed, giving the passenger certainty about the total price before agreeing to the ride, rather than finding out the exact fare only when the meter stops running.

Once a passenger confirms a booking at a displayed flat fare, that price is fixed for the trip - the driver may not add extra time, distance, booking-fee, or surcharge charges on top of it, even if the trip takes longer than expected due to traffic, a longer route, or other delays. Asking a passenger to pay more than the confirmed flat fare is a form of overcharging, covered further in Section 4.5.

Does a Flat Fare Still Include Section 4.2's Surcharges?

A frequent point of confusion is whether the peak-period, late-night, and location surcharges from Section 4.2 still apply on top of a confirmed flat fare. As Section 4.2 already establishes, they do not stack separately: percentage surcharges are calculated against the metered fare, and once an operator prices a trip as an upfront flat fare, that flat fare already stands in place of the metered fare plus its surcharges.

This does not mean time and location stop mattering under a flat fare - it means they are handled differently. Under a metered booking, each surcharge appears as its own line item on the passenger's receipt (Section 4.4). Under an upfront flat fare, any equivalent adjustment for a busy time or high-demand pickup point is already folded into the single number shown before the booking is confirmed. The difference is in how the price is presented and finalised, not a claim that time-of-day and location are ignored under a flat fare.

Metered Booking vs. Upfront Flat Fare: Side-by-Side

Worked Example: The Same Trip, Priced Two Ways

To see why the two pricing methods do not simply produce the same number, compare a single 9km trip with no waiting time, picked up during a non-peak period with no location surcharge, priced first as a metered booking and then as a flat fare.

Path A - Metered booking with a booking fee, using a non-Prime operator's $2.30 non-peak booking fee:

Path B - Upfront flat fare, where the operator's app instead shows and confirms a flat fare of $10.90 before the trip begins.

Even though both paths cover the identical 9km trip, the two totals land $1.00 apart, and there is nothing improper about either number - they are simply two different, LTA-permitted pricing methods, decided by the operator's own pricing. A flat fare is not automatically the more expensive option, and not automatically the cheaper one either. If unexpected roadworks then add 12 minutes to this same trip, Path A's meter keeps adding waiting-time charges at 26 cents per 45 seconds, pushing the bill above $11.90, while Path B's confirmed $10.90 does not move at all - the operator, not the passenger, absorbs the delay.

When the Trip Runs Long: Whose Fault, and Does It Matter to the Fare?

A confirmed flat fare does not change no matter why a trip took longer than expected - but a professional TDVL holder should still separate two very different reasons a flat-fare trip might run long. If the delay comes from unavoidable congestion, an accident ahead, a road closure, or a diversion outside the driver's control, the fare correctly stays fixed and there is no service problem to answer for. If instead the trip runs long because the driver chose an unnecessarily indirect route - through unfamiliarity, inattention, or poor planning - the fare still does not change, since the passenger already confirmed a fixed price, but this is not simply a non-issue: the driver is still giving poorer service, wasting their own paid trip time, and risking their standing with the operator and with passengers who rate the trip afterward. A flat fare removes the financial incentive to take a bad route, but never removes the professional expectation of choosing a sensible, direct one.

Common Exam Traps in This Area

TDVL scenario questions on booking fees and flat fares circle back to a small number of recurring traps:

• Assuming the peak booking fee equals the non-peak figure. The $2.30 (or Prime's $2.50) figure is specifically non-peak; peak-period fees vary by operator and are not published as one uniform number.
• Assuming a flat fare must be higher than the metered equivalent. The worked example above shows a flat fare can land above or below the metered-plus-booking-fee total - the direction depends on the operator's own pricing, not a fixed rule.
• Assuming surcharges stack on top of a confirmed flat fare. A flat fare already stands in place of the metered fare and its surcharges; adding a further surcharge on top is overcharging, not correctly applying Section 4.2's rules.
• Assuming any delay excuses an extra charge on a flat-fare trip. Whether the delay was unavoidable traffic or the driver's own poor route choice, the confirmed flat fare does not change either way.

The TDVL Test Angle

Scenario questions in this area test whether a candidate can tell a metered booking apart from a flat-fare booking, whether a confirmed flat fare can change after the fact for any reason, and whether a flat fare protects the passenger's total without excusing sloppy routing. The safest habit is to check, at the start of any app booking, whether the passenger's screen showed a flat fare or a metered estimate - and to honour whichever pricing method the app actually confirmed.