Hail Taxi’s, Hail Hitler’s

This 1st appeared in the Herald dt 19.05/17

The reality of living in a part of the world where a fair taxi system is absent, was once again brought home during a visit to Hyderabad. On arrival at the new airport which is a good 40 kms from the city, there was no tension. Signages inform you to check one or the other taxi app. For those not tech savvy there are prepaid counters.

While waiting to collect the checked luggage, the taxi is booked on the app. Once the driver confirmed we were his customers, using an “OTP” he loaded our luggage and then switched on the meter. Strange in Goa, at the prepaid counter one has pay extra for bags. The taxi was comfortable and air conditioned, if I was wondering if I had to pay and arm and a leg like one does in Goa, there was no need for anxiety, the app had already told me the ride would cost between 700 to 750/-. A steal considering that to get from the Goa airport to Verna Industrial Estate in a non AC cab one shells out almost 500/- for 10 Km.

The almost one hour ride was interesting, apart from seeing how Hyderabad had changed since my last visit 15 years ago, it was a chance to interact with the driver on his experience with Ola. He drives during the day for 8 to 10 hours and he has a driver who takes over in the second shift. No time to sit around and play cards for sure.

His driver is paid 1500 per shift. If the cab clocks Rs 3000 in terms of fares, Ola pays the owner an incentive of 3000/-. This from Ola’s point of view ensures that the taxi’s are available as much as possible so customers always have a ride no matter what time of day. There are other slabs of incentive. Each a little lower, the minimum seems to be 1200, below which no incentive is payable. The catch however is the customer rating. If a customer gives a bad rating to the driver assuming he was rude or drove recklessly etc, the driver loses his incentive for that day. So drivers I noticed in my next few rides were careful. No signal jumping etc.

Once the customer has chosen his destination and if the taxi goes ofcourse, immediately there is a call from the control room to check if everything is OK. So one can be taken for a joy ride, in Goa this does not happen (brownie points for the goan taxi) because the exorbitant rate is fixed first so no point in driving in circles to make the meter show a higher fare.

Another advantage with apps, one can compare rates, since the estimate is given when you make the booking, one can choose the cheapest fare going at that time. The aggregators also make offers which can make the ride cheaper for a customer and also benefit the driver. The fare back to the airport was almost double, the reason it was cheaper was because the operator had an offer. The benefit for the drivers is that he gets a fare from the airport faster rather than waste the whole day waiting. Is this not something the goan taxi’s should agitate about. They go to Calangute and return empty, why not be able to pick a fare from Calangute to the airport. This has two parts, one is statutory, some archaic law prevents this as one assumes it denies a local taxi of his fare in Calangute and two technology, how does the driver know who wants a ride back to the airport. This is where the app helps, it puts the driver and customer on the same page.

Today, in Goa to get a taxi or even a richshaw for a short distance it is impossible, and even if the driver decides to take you, it is a favour for which you will have to add a premium. With an app based service this is not an issue, when the driver accepts your request he does not know where you wish to go till he arrives to take you, so there is no question of turning down fares based on distance.

With cashless payment options there is no issue with change, the money just gets deducted from online wallets once the ride is closed.

So, is it all one sided, no drivers can rate the customer too, and if the customer has a poor rating because of boorish behaviour, the driver seeing a customer’s low rating can decide not to accept his ride. So customers cannot behave badly and keep riding.

Because it is so easy and reasonably cheap, the number of people using ride hailing apps has increased drastically, more customer means there is a need for more taxis, car owners are preferring to use taxis to avoid the hassle of parking or driving after a drink. The market size has increased. This is an opportunity, not just to become a driver but to own your own car, the EMI’s are paid from the earnings and why one, they own several. The ride hailing app is an employment generator.

The aggregator takes 21% for his services, mind you 1% is TDS, this means that the drivers come into the tax net and become responsible citizens. Most ride hailing apps are possibly foreign owned. The myth being spread by local taxi unions is that outsiders will come and enter the taxi business, this is far from the truth, it is local who will sign up and be part of the system. Ola and Uber do not import drivers.

Hopefully good sense will prevail among the decision makers and they will decide in favour of the State rather than a few votes in their individual constituency.