Maple Valley will suddenly take a quantum leap from a bedroom community to Seattle's twin city, City Manager David Johnston said.

Situated in the King County of Washington, Maple Valley has enjoyed a significant growth over the past few years, but as per Johnston prediction, the city will soon take a bigger leap.

Following ComfortDelGro's footsteps, SMRT Taxis has also announced its decision to increase taxi fares.

Starting December 20, flagdown fares for SMRT's most taxis will jump by 20 cents. Fares for limousines will climb by 70 cents. But flagdown rates for Chrysler cabs will remain unchanged at $5.

ComfortDelGro Corp, Singapore's dominant transport operator, confirmed on Tuesday that it had no current plans to raise taxi rentals.

Tammy Tan, a spokesperson for ComfortDelGro, described that the move as a part of its overall fare structure revision. The spokesperson also cited rising demand for transport services in the state.

According to a Global Business Travel forecast by American Express, there are indications that an increase in the prices for business travel is apparently on the cards all over the world in 2012, with the passengers in the Asia-Pacific region likely to witness the highest hike.

On Monday the Land Transport Authority (LTA) has said that ELECTRONIC Road Pricing (ERP) rates will be reduced for the June 2011 school holiday period along certain roads and expressways. This is the temporary change in the rates for vacations.

The ERP will be reduced by $1 per Passenger Car Unit (PCU) for certain roads at specified times, while there will be no change in the rates where ERP rate is $0.50 per PCU currently.

Superbus which was planned few months ago is on trial in Abu Dhabi in the recent times. The Superbus is electric-powered based bus. It can carry 23 passengers with speeds of up to 250km per hour. In recent time the tests of the bus is being done in Abu Dhabi.

John Rachmat has informed that taxi companies may apply a fuel surcharge in next few days. Rachmat is the transport analyst for Royal Bank of Scotland Asia Securities. He has told that the taxi companies
may go for a fuel surcharge of 50 cents very soon. However, he has also mentioned that the demand on impact is expected to be very less.

So far as Singapore is concerned, it has six other taxi operators in the country. These six operators put 26,000 cabs on the roads of the country collectively.