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TansAD To Introduce Taxi Ranks In Abu Dhabi |
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Introducing taxi ranks and double shifts for taxi drivers are the important steps being planned to solve the non-availability of the taxi in Abu Dhabi, a senior official at the taxi regulatory authority, TransAD, said today. The taxi ranks, at the residential and commercial areas in the emirate, will have several facilities for drivers and passengers, Abdullah Sultan Al Sabbagh, General Manager of TransAD, said. "Once the taxi ranks come up, the Tracking and Dispatching System (TDS) can easily send taxis to the required area from the nearest taxi rank. The ranks will have rest rooms for taxi drivers, small cafeteria, ATM etc," he told Gulf News daily, adding a pilot project will be introduced soon. At least 20 per cent of the taxis will be available round the clock by next year, when taxi drivers start working in two shifts from January, he said. Explaining the steps being taken to ensure availability of taxis he said; "We have allocated a particular share [of taxis] to each franchise to make taxi cabs available in all shopping malls in the city. Our inspectors are constantly watching the availability in such places and inform the call centre to dispatch more cabs to that particular place, if required. Franchises have also appointed their own inspectors for this purpose Out of the 9,300 taxis plying on the streets of the emirate, 4,600 are new silver taxis and 4,700 are old gold and white cabs. The number of silver cabs will go up to 5,000 by the end of December and all the 7,147 silver cabs will be on the streets by the first quarter of 2010. Considering the future demand, we are planning to introduce two more franchises by next year making a total of nine, he said. Out of 8,700 old taxis [gold and white], 3,929 have been phased out. Our periodic survey reveals that demand for taxis are still little bit more, so the old taxis will be phased out in proportion to the introduction of new taxis, he added. The entire old fleet will disappear by the end of 2012 because of the relevant law which says only old taxis which have completed five years of service could be phased out. Apart from old gold and white taxis, small cars among the silver taxis in the emirate will also be withdrawn within two years, he said. To solve the alleged salary cuts and related mistreatment by the franchises the rental scheme run by the franchises was stopped instead TransAD introduced basic salary plus commission plus accommodation scheme for drivers. TransAD will introduce a unified drivers contract very soon which will solve all such problems, he added Efforts to develop a system called ’mTaxi Solutions’ to pay taxi fare through mobile phones are under process. Pre-paid cards are under study. The use of credit card may take some time, he said. |
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