Old meets new: Kolkata's yellow cabs say Ola!

About 1,000 such cabs have been registered on the company's platform so far

The traditional and the modern have come together. Kolkata’s ubiquitous yellow cabs can now be booked through the app of online cab-booking service Ola. The company has said about 1,000 such cabs have been registered on the Ola platform so far. It aims to increase the number of these cabs on its platform to 5,000 within the next three months.

“We have transformed traditional hailing to Ola hailing,” said Nitesh Prakash, director (operations), Ola.

Registered yellow taxi drivers are equipped with smartphones that enable them to accept booking requests and navigate to the customer’s doorstep. Customers will pay the fares either through cash or Ola Money, the company’s mobile wallet service. While fares for the yellow cabs would be in accordance with government-fixed meters, Ola will charge an additional Rs 10 as convenience fee.

“This would increase the utilisation of yellow cabs and increase their revenue by as much as 40 per cent in the current scale of operations,” said Prakash.

Drivers of these cabs will, however, have an option of logging out of the Ola platform and resume their normal operations. “We aim to provide flexibility to our partners,” Prakash said.

Kolkata has been one of the fastest growing markets for Ola and the additional fleet on its platform will give it a significant advantage over its San Francisco-based rival, Uber. With around 5,000 cabs, the company is growing around 40 per cent on a month-on-month basis.

Of late, the taxi aggregation business has been increasing manifold in this city, amid reports of unruly behaviour by drivers of metered taxis here becoming a deterrent for commuters.

An increasing preference for app-based cabs has led to a surge in the number of operators applying for permits.

Meanwhile, their existence under threat from app-based taxi services, cab operators’ unions have resorted to strikes, to force the government to bring in more regulations in this regard, which aggregators have termed ‘unjustified’. Ola’s tie-up with yellow cabs is being seen as an effort to bring the other camp on board. Earlier, Ola had tried to buy peace with local operators in Mumbai by bringing traditional black-and-yellow cabs under its network.

Last month, the Kolkata Taxi Operators’ Union, backed by the All India Trade Union Congress, had called a strike, demanding cab aggregators be brought under the traditional taxi system. They sought a fixed fare structure for app-based cabs, as well as meters installed in those cabs.

“The operators do not own any cabs and fix the fares according to their will, which creates unfavourable competition. We welcome the introduction of technology that benefits passengers, as long as they have licensing and regulatory requirements,” Bimal Guha, general secretary of the Bengal Taxi Association, told Business Standard.