Kerala: Online cabs at more railway stations

Kochi: Ignoring the protest being carried out by traditional cab drivers for the past four months, the Railways has decided to allow online cab hailing service providers to operate from stations like Tripunithura and Kazhakootam. With this commuters can avail of online taxi hailing service from eight stations in the state.
“It's (allowing online cabs) being implemented across the country. Our attempt is to cover all main stations in a phased manner for providing last-mile connectivity to commuters at a reasonable price. This time we've included more stations like Kazhakoottam. However, the contract will be for three months only and after that a fresh tender will be floated on a continuous basis," said a senior railway official.

The commercial wing of the Thiruvananthapuram division floated tender for operation of cab aggregator service from Thiruvananthapuram Central, Ernakulam Junction, Ernakulam North, Kochuveli, Kazhakoottam, Tripunithura, Aluva and Thrissur. The tenders will be opened on April 24 and the contracts will be issued to highest bidder. Though the Railways insists that any agencies or even individual parties capable of operating online cab service can take part in the tender process, conditions included clearly point out that it is big players such as Uber and Ola. One of the conditions is bidders should have experience in operating app-based cab aggregator services in at least two towns.

Meanwhile, railway passengers associations have called for including a clause that stipulates that the cab aggregators could only charge the maximum hire fees fixed by the government. "Currently there is no clause. After a period of initial low price, they might introduce surge or peak hour charges when they monopoly in the market," said P Krishnakumar, Divisional Railway Users' Consultative Committee (DRUCC) member and general secretary of the Thrissur Railway Passengers Association.

The traditional auto and taxi drivers, who had protested before the Ernakulam North and South station for months, say that the online taxis operate at low rates and that the Railway providing space for setting up kiosks amount to "agreement violation". "We propose to bring in certain terms and conditions like fixed standard hiring charges. The proposals have been submitted to the Transport Department for consideration. Such a regulation is already in effect at places like Bangalore. Usually such players extend low fares till they add more number of taxis operating under them. After that the fares will be hiked," an MVD official said. Railways' earlier agreements with Uber for setting up counters at Thiruvananthapuram, Ernakulam North, Aluva and Thrissur and with Ola at Ernakulam South will expire next month.