Ola has announced that Kolkata’s yellow ‘Taxis’ can now be booked through its mobile app.
Ola has already registered over 1000 yellow taxis across Kolkata. The registered taxi drivers are offered a smartphone to help them accept booking requests and navigate to the customers’ pickup point making the entire process hassle-free.
Nitesh Prakash, director of operations at Ola said, “Taxis have been the lifeline of Kolkata’s transportation and Ola’s technology can go a long way in connecting the driver partners and citizens to make transportation efficient and effortless for all.”
The taxis’ fares will be Government approved with an additional tax of INR 10 by Ola, at the end of the ride. The payment process will be settled as usual, either by directly paying to the taxi driver or through Ola Money, Ola’s mobile wallet service.
Also, driver partners are given the freedom to log on or log out of the application as well as a choice to accept booking requests.
Benefits for customers:
Sharing Ride Details: Users can choose to share their ride details in real-time with their friends and family anytime during the trip. The shared details will include driver’s name, taxi number and driver’s contact details as well as a real-time view of the cab’s movement on a map.
SOS Button: The SOS button in-app when activated during the trip, will send out complete ride details to a pre-set friend or family member of the user via SMS and e-mail.
Driver verification: All drivers registered on the Ola app are licensed by the local authorities to ply their taxis in the city. Ola takes sufficient care to do a thorough KYC of professional and personal documents of all driver-partners on the platform.
Training: Drivers go through basic training across behavioural, etiquette and technology which helps in delivering a smooth booking experience for drivers without having to call and ask for directions.
Benefits for Drivers:
With latest technology, the drivers will have access to consistent booking requests from around their vicinity. Such additional rides will make a considerable difference to their daily revenues, up to as much as 40% in current scale of operations.
The company is aiming to grow over 5000 taxis in the next three months. Nationally, it has more than 250,000 vehicles across 100+ cities; making it the largest mobile app for personal transportation.
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