I do comparison between Singapore and Jakarta because both are the city I familiar with for past decades, when my critical thinking was/is developed. I think some might think it is like comparing apple and orange because there are plenty of differences in both city demographically and geographically.
First let's see Jakarta Cab Fare. There are few prices of cab fare in Jakarta, but I will take the normal one at this case.
Flagdown Fare: 6k IDR or about 0.85 SGD for the first 1km
Meter Fare: 300 IDR or about 0.045 SGD for every 100 m or for every 30 seconds waiting time
No booking fee
No peak periods surcharge
And now let's see Singapore Cab Fare (before being revised). I will take average here for flagdown fare.
Flagdown fare: 3.00 SGD for the first 1 km
Meter Fare: 0.2 SGD for every 385 m (from 1 to 10 km) and 0.2 SGD for every 330 m or 0.2 for every 45 seconds.
Booking Fee: 3.5 SGD
Peak Period Surcharge: 35% and 50%
From both data, we can tell that meter fare in Jakarta is 5% of Flagdown fare (every 100 m), while in Singapore the meter fare is only 2% of Flagdown fare (every 100 m). For waiting time, the fare is about 0.16% (every second) of Flagdown fare in Jakarta, while in Singapore the waiting time fare is 0.045% (every second) of flagdown fare. Well, it is true from these numbers we can say actually Singapore has lower meter and waiting time to flagdown fare ratio than Jakarta, but the fact that both countries have different standard living cost should take into account as well.
In Jakarta, a price of FastFood chain set meal is about 20K IDR or about 3.5 SGD, meanwhile in Singapore it will cost you up to 7.00 SGD in average. So in fact, the standard living cost from meal perspective, Singapore has higher price as much of 2 times than Jakarta. Comparing this cost with cab fare in both cities, we might think that Singapore has higher cost in cab fare, don't we?
The ratio of Flagdown cab fare to FastFood meal cost in Singapore is about 42%, while in Jakarta it is only about 30%. Meanwhile the ratio for meter fare is about 0.87% (every 100 m) in Singapore, but 1.5% (every 100 m) in Jakarta. The ratio for waiting time fare is about 0.06% in Singapore, but about 0.05% in Jakarta for every second.
By taking assumption ratio of cost of living is more valid than the former and from all of the numbers above, one absolute point that can be pointed out is the flagdown cab fare in Singapore is relatively higher than Jakarta referring to their standard living in both cities. But the meter fare in Singapore is relatively lower than Jakarta, while waiting time fare in Jakarta is relatively lower than Singapore. The latter can be justified with the fact that Jakarta traffic is a messed and traffic jam is everywhere, so the waiting time fare supposedly (relatively) cheaper than Singapore which does not really have terrible traffic jam like Jakarta has. But the waiting fare to flagdown fare ratio in Jakarta is higher than Singapore as about 4 times, which it is quite big difference.
Analysing this (stupid) numbers, makes me realize that actually cab fare in Jakarta is underpaid only for the flagdown fare, which make people in Jakarta simply hail and book the cab even for short distance of travelling, due to relatively cheaper flagdown fare. Booking a cab is even cheaper because there is no booking fee. It is true that public transportation in Jakarta is suck (for some people), but by increasing the flagdown fare by at least 2 times of current fare will discourage some people to take cab and using public transport instead. But well, it might have drawback to cab industry, they might get higher revenue, or/and they need to cut down number of cabs that being operated on the street, which at the latter case it means less vehicles on the road in Jakarta, less traffic. As the matter of fact, Singapore has about 26,700 cabs on the street, means it only can cater about 2% of its population.
So back again to the title, which is a question, which one you think is more appropriate statement?
