They had to prorate the midnight surcharges in the hour leading to it because it was causing quite a dearth of cabs from 11pm onwards, especially from 1130pm. Many drivers would take a break then, leaving long lines at taxi stands. Many empty taxi cabs would actually just cruise the roads, refusing to take street fares, instead waiting for booking calls (which incur a surcharge).

As for the increase in the Certificate of Entitlement (COE) prices, it's not a prescribed increase, but a projected one based on an estimated 40% decrease in the number of COEs due to quota adjustments need to correct missed projections by the authorities over the past few years (they projected more car deregistrations than actuals, and over issued COEs). From here on, the number of COEs available will be based on actual car deregistrations the previous 6mths (iirc), so everyone is expecting the price COEs to go up considerably in the near term.