Long way to better service

Some say the first impression is the last impression. True in the case of the taxi services because a person’s initial image of a city is often determined when s/he hails a ride to a hotel or home for the first time.

For years, the taxi system in the country was never organized with no proper fare structure, standard rules for vehicles, and proper training on customer relations.

Customers, including foreign tourists, often complained of standing in the scorching sun for a long time to hail a taxi on the streets or the refusal to go for short trips.

Despite many attempts by authorities, efforts to regulate taxi services in the country turned out to be a tough task.

The lack of regulations for the orange and white taxis helped unregulated private transportation to flourish as they provided a better and more affordable alternative.

But things changed with the introduction of the new land transport law towards the end of the last decade.

While licenses were given to companies to provide metered on-demand taxi services via mobile applications, the homegrown start-up, Otaxi, got the approval to start on-demand services at a much lower minimum fare.

Starting initially with a few hundred taxis in the capital, OTaxi services expanded to cities such as Musandam in the north, Salalah in the South, and now Duqm.

But as the government embarks on serious ‘smart city’ initiatives, taxi services are still not on par with services in the neighbouring cities.

Speaking to the Observer, a taxi driver said that the challenges we face are not unique, just that we started late with the modernisation of the public transport system here.

“Taxi operators, including myself, preferred to operate in their individual capacity and not by following the terms and conditions of any company. There was a lot of resistance initially, but the fact is many drivers finally saw a win-win situation, which is evident from the success and expansion of Otaxi over the last four to five years.”

Over the last few days, there has been this debate that airport taxis at Muscat Airport are slightly expensive and cheaper services like Otaxi and Ubar are not permitted to pick up passengers from the airport.

According to Harith al Maqbali, CEO of OTaxi, “We have been trying hard to provide affordable service anywhere in the country, but there are some concerns raised by the taxi drivers at Muscat Airport, and our efforts have been to take them onboard.”

Kalpesh Shah, a resident told the Observer, “The quality of taxi services at the airport has improved especially after the opening of the new terminal, but as a regular customer I will always prefer a more affordable service all the time.”