0.1 TDVL Exam Overview & How to Use This Guide

0.1 TDVL Exam Overview & How to Use This Guide

Quick answer: The Taxi Driver's Vocational Licence (TDVL) is the vocational licence that Singapore's Land Transport Authority (LTA) requires before a driver may provide taxi chauffeured services. Direct applicants must be Singapore Citizens aged 30 or older with a Class 3/3A driving licence held for more than 1 year. The path runs from a S$40 GoBusiness application through medical clearance, mandatory training, and a 3-paper assessment (Paper A, Paper B, Paper C) to a Digital LTA Vocational Licence. LTA has not published an official topic weighting, numeric pass mark, or per-paper question count for the assessment — this guide is explicit about that throughout.

What Is the TDVL?

The TDVL is a vocational licence — a licence layered on top of an ordinary driving licence that authorises a driver to carry fare-paying passengers professionally. LTA administers the entire vocational licensing framework for Singapore's taxi and private hire car (PHC) industry, and it explicitly states that TDVL holders may provide chauffeured services using either a taxi or a private hire car. That dual authority is the single most important fact about the TDVL, and Section 0.2 of this chapter unpacks it in depth against the narrower Private Hire Car Driver's Vocational Licence (PDVL).

Applications are not submitted to a taxi company or a training provider — they go through GoBusiness, LTA's digital licensing gateway for businesses and vocational applicants. Training and assessment, by contrast, are delivered by LTA-appointed providers: companies such as ComfortDelGro Taxi and NTUC LearningHub run the classroom training, while Republic Polytechnic is one of the LTA-appointed providers that conducts the assessment papers.

Who Must Take the TDVL

A direct TDVL applicant must, at minimum:

• Be a Singapore Citizen
• Be at least 30 years old at the point of application
• Hold a valid Class 3 or 3A Singapore driving licence for more than 1 year
• Demonstrate basic English proficiency (GCE O/N Level English grade D7 or better, or WPLN Level 3 in listening, reading and speaking)
• Be up to date on CPF MediSave contributions, if self-employed
• Meet LTA's clean-record requirements (LTA states that serious offences such as rape, murder or kidnapping will not be considered)
• Pass a medical assessment and chest X-ray, submitted digitally through the Harmonised Medical Examination Report (HMER)

Anyone who wants to drive a taxi professionally in Singapore — not just a private hire car — needs this specific licence; simply holding a Class 3/3A licence and access to a car is not enough.

The Path From Application to Licence

Applicants must pass all three papers — Paper A, Paper B and Paper C — to receive the TDVL. There is no partial credit for passing two out of three.

How This Guide Maps to the Official Domains

LTA's own pages describe what is tested (eligibility, taxi rules, conduct, fares, safety, routes) but do not publish an official percentage weighting for each topic area. To make study time easier to plan, OpenExamPrep organised this guide around seven practice-emphasis estimates, built from the topics that LTA, Republic Polytechnic and ComfortDelGro materials cover most heavily:

Important: these seven percentages are OpenExamPrep's own practice-emphasis estimates, not official LTA topic weights. Treat them as a study-time guide, not a guaranteed scoring breakdown.

How to Use This Guide

1. Read the chapters in order. Chapter 1's eligibility and licensing concepts and this introduction's TDVL/PDVL distinction underpin the taxi-and-P2P rules in Chapter 3, the fare mechanics in Chapter 4, and the conduct rules in Chapter 5.
2. Use the quizzes as checkpoints, not busywork. Each section ends with original practice questions; if you miss one, re-read the paragraph it is tied to before moving on.
3. Don't chase a pass-mark number that doesn't exist. The official LTA, Republic Polytechnic and ComfortDelGro pages reviewed for this guide state that applicants must pass all three papers, but none publishes a numeric pass mark or the number of questions per paper. Study for mastery of the rules, not a guessed cutoff score.
4. Treat this as a companion to, not a replacement for, mandatory training. The TDVL course delivered by your LTA-appointed provider is a legal requirement; this guide reinforces and organises that material for review and self-testing.