[sustran] Re: Fwd: Shanghai targets idle taxis to ease jams

[Brendan Finn]

Paul,

On paper, it seems like a great idea, and there's no doubt that it is
feasible. If there are so many holding points, then there should surely be
available cabs within a few minutes of the caller.

The figure of cabs being empty 45% of the time is high, and is a huge amount
of wasted resource. Parking them up temporarily should provide a major
saving to the cabbies, and better margins.

Of course, the big issue is the motivation for this. Is it to get some of
the cab traffic out of the way so that motorists can have clearer conditions
(for a few months until the space is absorbed again by more motorists) - or
is it to offer a better taxi service ?

There are four potential downsides :

a) The response time. Booking on street can be spontaneous at present.
Anything greater than 2-3 minutes between call and cab in central areas, and
5 minutes outside will be seen as a serious deterioration compared to today.
(And some people will be impatient even at those levels).

b) The cost of the booking, if any. If it's free, that's OK. If there's a
charge such as in Singapore, there will naturally be consumer resistance. It
would need to be nominal, or a standard element of the taxi fare.

c) Handling the volume of calls. This will require both customer-facing and
back-end excellence. For customer-facing aspect, it will have to offer many
options other than voice calls - e.g. SMS, internet, button-actuation at
taxi point etc. On the back-end, the call handling will have to be
excellent, the assignment must be fast and fault-free, and so must the
dispatch process.

d) Risk of exclusion. People with mobiles have immediate access to the taxi
system. People without are immediately disadvantaged. As always, it is the
more vulnerable within society that will face such barriers. The "10,000
designated taxi calling points" will be the key to this. (Where can we find
more info on how they will function?)

I have been working for some in the domain of bus-based demand responsive
transport, in which we deal with similar concepts. Recently, we have been
exploring how to migrate the concepts and solutions from the typical niches
of rural transport and services for the elderly, to large-scale service
provision in urban areas.

Interestingly (to me, anyway) the proposals for Shanghai would provide the
platform in which shared vehicle services could be offered as an option,
presumably at a lower price than the single-occupancy taxi. Especially if
100% of the taxi demand is channelled through a booking system, there must
be incredible opportunities for optimisation across the city's taxi
resource.

Any takers on this one ?


Brendan Finn.
ETTS.

________________________________________________________________
e-mail : etts at indigo.ie    phone : +353.87.2530286

-----Original Message-----
From: sustran-discuss-bounces+etts=indigo.ie at list.jca.apc.org
[mailto:sustran-discuss-bounces+etts=indigo.ie at list.jca.apc.org]On
Behalf Of Paul Barter
Sent: 26 November 2004 02:43
To: sustran discuss
Subject: [sustran] Fwd: Shanghai targets idle taxis to ease jams


Any comments?
--------

Straits Times
Nov 26, 2004
Shanghai targets idle taxis to ease jams

Instead of driving around to look for passengers, cabbies will wait for
calls

Shanghai - SHANGHAI'S municipal government is taking empty taxis off the
roads in a drastic move to relieve its worsening traffic situation.

Come 2007, passengers will no longer be able to flag down a cab.
Instead, they will have to rely on taxi companies' hotlines or one of
10,000 designated taxi calling points to get a cab.

And the city's more than 45,000 taxi-drivers will have to wait for
business at 360 parking sites instead of plying the streets, the
Shanghai Star reported.

At the centre of the innovative and complex system, according to the
local transportation bureau, will be a Global Positioning System (GPS)
to monitor and direct taxis to ensure passengers get a taxi in three
minutes.

All taxis will be installed with a GPS device by 2007 and a basic
network which covers 4,000 taxis will be put in use this year, the
bureau said.

Explaining the overhaul, bureau director Bian Baipin said: 'Raising a
hand to beckon a taxi has many disadvantages. The taxi without
passengers occupies the road and the taxi drivers are prone to fatigue
and carelessness.

'The disadvantages also include fuel waste and environmental pollution.'

Statistics from the bureau show that a taxi runs 350km a day on average
and more than 45 per cent of taxis plying the roads are empty at any
given time.

But most people doubted that the new system would be feasible. 'It will
be really terrible if the line to call the taxi is busy...I will waste a
lot of time making the call and waiting for the taxi to come,' said Mr
Qian Jinyue, an employee of a foreign-venture company based in Shanghai.

The bureau gave the assurance that more people will be employed to man
the hotlines to ensure the efficiency of the booking-based system.

Cabbies were concerned if the parking centres would be enough to cover
Shanghai and enable them to reach passengers quickly. -- CHINA
DAILY/ASIA NEWS NETWORK

Copyright (c) 2004 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved.

[Forwarded for the purpose of research and education.]