Taxi Trips Will Be Shifted By More Than 80% From Street Hailing To E-hailing Under Rta’s Proposed Plan

The Government of Dubai has become one of the top contributors towards the development of a pollution-free world. In a recent move, Dubai’s Road and Transport Authority (RTA) has approved a plan to shift from street taxi hailing to taxi e-hailing.

The Government aims to revolutionize the city of Dubai into the world’s smartest city. The latest move is in furtherance of enforcing this objective.

The conventional taxi’s street hailing would now be replaced by e-hailing services.  Currently, e-hailing services account for 30% of all taxi trips in Dubai.

RTA aims for an 80% hike in the prevalence of e-hailing services in the years to come

E-hailing services have grown with time as they have established their efficiency in providing hassle-free and quick taxi services.

These services have made it easier for passengers in Dubai to electronically locate taxis and book rides.

Matter Al Tayer who happens to be the Director General and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors has acknowledged the role of these e-hailing taxi services in reducing the waiting times of passengers.

It has transformed urban transportation in Dubai and enhanced the user experience many times.

RTA has launched many initiatives and programs in Dubai that aim to improve individual mobility, decrease exploitation by private cars and promote customer satisfaction by providing quick and safe transportation services.

E-hailing services help to achieve this objective by mitigating the gap between the demand and the supply of taxis. It enables a customer to find his ride within 3.5 minutes or even less.

The success rate of trips increases exponentially through this method. It, therefore, increases the mileage and reduces the wastage of fuel which ultimately results in lesser pollution.

E-hailing services help customers to transact digitally, share rides with fellow passengers in order to reduce rentals, gain an access to the details of the drivers and the vehicles, and ultimately rate the services of the taxi driver. Dubai isn’t the first country to have adopted this model.

Singapore presently facilitates 85% of its taxi services through e-hailing only. The functional efficiency of e-hailing services aligns with the initiatives undertaken by the RTA for integrating the diverse modes of transportation in order to enable the residents of Dubai to commute conveniently from one place to another.

RTA is working in close association with an e-hailing company, Hala. Hala assists the RTA in identifying the operational network and the organizational structure of Dubai. It helps to curate new channels that ultimately help in attracting new users and customers. Hala will designate specific zones for accessing these e-hailing services.

Separate parking slots would be allocated for the street-hail taxis and e-hailing taxis. These spaces would be graphically represented in the map that would be designed by the RTA. Hala is currently working to develop its smart app to comprehensively offer all the information under one roof.

RTA is currently in deliberation with companies that would help lease their vehicles to the government. The department would then allocate a fleet of taxis that offer e-hail services.

Users can easily avail of these services by downloading the application developed by RTA and Hala. All they need to do is to download the Careem application on their mobile phones. The first-time users would be prompted to set up their own accounts.

Every user would be in the position to view the available Hala vehicles and taxis and the area where they are currently parked at. The users would just be required to add their pick-up address and their destination. They can even decide the mode of payment and once these details have been entered, they can finalize the booking by tapping the ‘Yalla’ option.

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An email and text message would be sent to their registered email address and phone number. This would be considered as a receipt of the booking. 

Most of the bookings are completed within 10 seconds. In addition, the user can share the real-time live location of the taxi with friends and family members. This service is equally beneficial for the drivers as well.

They no longer need to roam around here and there in the search of passengers. The application will notify the nearest driver to fetch a passenger from a particular place. According to the statistics, the ambit of these services is expanding with the passage of time.

In the year of 2019, there were only a few taxis reserved for e-hailing services. However, there has been a hike by 30% by the end of 2022, as now, there are 11,662 taxes that are currently deployed for this purpose. It s expected to complete 105 million trips by the end of 2023. These services have truly defined the future of tomorrow.