To counter the threat from international ride-sharing apps, Tehran's taxi organization has announced it will develop an app to help people call for a taxi virtually.
Meysam Mozaffar, the Chief Executive Officer of Tehran Taxi Management and Supervision Organization, said that as part of his organization's plan to keep up-to-date, it will launch a new smartphone application by the end of spring, ISNA reported.
The chief noted that the program is currently going through testing phases and it has been designed in accordance with research done by studying several foreign taxi centers around the globe.
The official added that the study phase of the central hub took one and a half year to set up, and will be launched by the end of spring, if all goes well. The system works by taxi drivers across the capital installing an application on their smartphones and the hub connects them to customers. According to a local technology website, the app will work with two types of taxis: those roaming the streets and those coming from hubs across the city.
The benefit of this system is that drivers' details will be available to passengers when they pre-order the cab.
In the second phase of the operation, the Tehran Taxi group will open the hub round the clock, to which the taxi driver nearest will pick up the passenger. The cost benefits of this system are currently unknown, as it will likely cut down the number of taxis roaming the streets with no passengers.
In addition, the application is also likely to help reduce the level of pollution being emitted by the several hundred taxis on the road, as they will save their fuel until being messaged. There have been previous attempts at promoting ride-sharing in Tehran as it is known globally, with at least one major foreign Internet company attempting to launch a service here. That service, originally called Taxiyaab, was threatened with court by the Taxi association and renamed itself Snapp, but failed to take off.
The company has had some limited success in the market, but with the announcement of this app and the number of taxis immediately available to the taxi organization, it is likely to remain a small player.
