This is one of the first things I noticed on arriving in Singapore -- the ride from the airport to city I would normally expect to pay $30-40 US dollars for, and yet it consistently costs no more than SGD $15-20 (I usually just round up to 20).
Yet I understand that gas is not cheap, and car taxes are ridiculously high here.
What is the explanation? Is it a public service helping to make up for where public transport does not serve well, or to make people like Singapore even more??
There is no minimum wage in Singapore and an almost limitless supply of Bangladeshi, Myanmar, Indian, Chinese and Filipino cheap labour so people (including taxi drivers) have to work for almost nothing to survive.