Kochi: The Railways’ efforts to provide safe and affordable last mile connectivity to passengers arriving at 11 railway stations under the Thiruvananthapuram division received a lukewarm response with the authorities succeeding in reaching a pact with online cab operators only in three stations.
Unlike previous occasions, major players Uber and Ola didn’t evince any interest with sources saying they backed out in the wake of protests indulged in by traditional taxi and autorickshaw drivers.
“A new player agreed to operate online cabs from three main stations while we’ve decided to retender, inviting applications from interested players, in the eight other stations,” a senior commercial department official said.
According to sources, the Thrissur-based Xen Cabs have been doled out the contract and they are learnt to operate out of Thrissur, Ernakulam and Thiruvananthapuram stations. The tenders were floated nearly three months back and the railway authorities offered space for the cab aggregators to set up kiosks to woo them. Earlier the railways decided to allow online cab hailing service providers to operate from even small stations like Tripunithura and Kazhakootam.
The traditional auto and taxi drivers had protested before major stations like the Ernakulam North and South for months against the Railway move to allow online cabs to pick and drop commuters from inside railway stations. They even threatened the online cab drivers and there were at least a couple of incidents when the protests escalated and needed police intervention.
