New Company Gets Space After Old Ones' Poor Performance

With the entrance of new players in online cab sector, the well-known companies like Careem and Uber would have to brace for more challenges due to their fast-losing popularity among commuters and poor operations

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th Sep, 2019 ):With the entrance of new players in online cab sector, the well-known companies like Careem and Uber would have to brace for more challenges due to their fast-losing popularity among commuters and poor operations.

Recently, a ride-hailing service (Buraq Taxi) has entered the country's market announcing 10 percent discount for students, teachers, doctors, public servants, senior citizens, security personnel, lawyers and journalists.

However, the satisfaction of public and a comprehensive check and balance over the captains to ensure fair-play would be the biggest challenge for the new comers to compete in the market as the already operational companies are still struggling to the passengers' confidence they lost in just a couple of years.

"We are offering 97 per cent of the rides' share to our captains, which Careem and Uber give only 65-70 per cent to their captains," Buraq Taxi Service Media Manager Ahsan Ullah told APP while highlighting the company's unique selling point.

Under the Buraq policy, he said, it was not possible for captains to cancel a ride when he/she was getting such a huge profit from a single ride, terming it one of the main differences between Buraq and other ride-sharing services.

Before its launching, the manager said the company had conducted a survey to get the public feedback aimed at avoiding the mistakes made by the already operating companies.

A real time monitoring mechanism had also been introduced to keep a check over captains' performance so that they could not deceive a commuter and damage the company's repute, he added.

Ahsan said the company had developed such an App. under which maximum control had been given to commuters for their safety.

He said audio and visual recording options were also placed on the application to decide the matters judiciously.

To a query, he said free of cost trainings were being imparted to the drivers, making them enable to read map through geo-fencing.

A Buraq club has also been set up for welfare of the captains and their families to provide them different facilities like, health, education and financial assistance in emergencies.

Meanwhile, the public is perturbed over the bad behaviours and dirty tricks of drivers who are leaving no option for fleecing the people.

Jibran Ali, who is a frequent user of the online cab service, said nowadays the cheating was rampant on part of the captains as majority of them were using different tactics to make a quick buck, bringing a bad name for the service provider.

"I faced problem in ride charges time and again as corrupt captains have installed a Mobile App on their cell phones to interrupt the GPS through which the company monitors the trip route, send a fake-temporary receipt of exorbitant fare, almost three-time high than the estimated fare, which disappears after 20 to 30 seconds from the screen leaving no record in mobile phone of consumers," he said.

Although, he said, the company always refunded the 'looted money' whenever complained, but it never shared that what action had been taken against the cheating captains as most of the online cab users were not able to lodge their complaints and get remedy, rather they opted to stop using the service.

"A captain, on condition of anonymity, showed me the distracting mobile App. and demonstrated that how they pick rides, interrupt Global Position System (GPS) to show longest route to reach the drop off location, manipulate with ride charges, send temporary receipts to passengers and manage to delay ride verification for hours justifying the prolonged journey," he said.

He said ID of the fraudulent captains must be blocked forever, besides blacklisting the vehicles so that no one could think of foul play, otherwise the company would lose its credibility and the public would go for alternative service.

When contacted, Careem and Uber companies had nothing to comment on the increased number of complaints as they had been making lame excuses of data compilation in the age of information technology.

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