Now, Dubai taxis with Wi-Fi!

RTA and Cars Taxi to deploy 155 Wi-Fi enabled Hala Taxis coincide with RTA’s celebration of its Public Transport Day on Nov 1.

By November 1, the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) will deploy 155 units of wi-fi-enabled ‘Hala Taxis’ dedicated to meet and service the increasing number of booking requests from customers at the Booking and Dispatch Centre of RTA Public Transport Agency.

Abdul Razaq Mohammed Ibrahim, General Manager, Cars Taxi; Abdullah Al Sabbagh; Dr Yousef Al Ali; Adel Shakri; Tariq Salah Al Ghaith, Acting Director of Franchising and Enforcements address the media on Monday. — KT photo by Rahul Gajjar

The taxi will charge basic fare starting at Dh6 during the day. The introduction of Hala Taxi which was launched on Monday at the Meydan Hotel, will coincide with RTA’s celebration of its Public Transport Day (PTD) 4th Edition 2013.

The first of its kind in Dubai, Hala Taxi is a collaboration of RTA and Cars Taxi and targets to service at least 30 per cent of the 12,000 current booking requests from taxi customers throughout Dubai and the rest by the other taxi fleets.

A total of 200,000 taxi trips daily are made on Dubai roads, five per cent of which or 12,000 of these come from booking requests.

Dr Yousef Al Ali, CEO, RTA’s Public Transport Agency, who launched the service with Abdullah Al Sabbagh, CEO of Cars Taxi, said Hala Taxi will cater to the public needs and meet the growing number of requests received by the dispatch centre at the agency.

“The service is also meant to boost the drive of the Dubai Government in this regard, provide an effective mechanism for handling public complaints forwarded to the dispatch centre, accelerate the dispatch of cabs to customers, provide better coverage to high-demand areas through the centre, improve the rate of cabdrivers’ response to the bookings of the centre, and augment the revenues of the dispatch centre,” said Al Ali.

Hala Taxi cabs have a distinguishing black-and-grey colour fitted with all features of convenience, safety and luxury deployed round-the-clock.

Driven in two shifts by well-trained drivers, they can be booked through the existing contact channels of the dispatch centre, including the 04-2080808.

Al Ali said the same taxi fare is applicable to Hala Taxi, and these cabs will serve all districts of the emirate, but cabdrivers are not allowed to stop to pick up ordinary passengers hailing taxi at the streets. “These smart taxis have very new meters, and they carry the picture of the taxi drivers including lots of other information the customer wants to know. ”

A number of Hala Taxi cabs will also be serving ladies in their distinguishing black-pink colour. But, reservation of these taxi cabs must be done two hours in advance.

Abdullah Al Sabbagh, CEO of Cars Taxi expressed his satisfaction and pleasure for the launch of this service through Cars Taxi, considering this project as a turning point in the taxi sector all over Dubai. A video presentation delivered by Adel Shakri, Director of Transport Systems at the Public Transport Agency, highlighted the technologies. -lily@khaleejtimes.com