Many years back , King Canute realized that a tide
cannot be stopped from coming in
But it seems that some of us still think that it is
possible to arrest / reverse the " March of
Technology " !
How else can you explain the recent decision of the
Road Ministry that Uber / Ola taxies must install taxi-meters currently
found in Kali-Pili taxies / Auto Rickshaws ?
Because , after all , a taxi by any other name is still
a taxi , and must comply with the provisions of The Motor Vehicle Act ?
What will the North Block / South Block mandarins do
when the following happens ?
# Google / Alibaba (
internet giants ) and Tesla / Mercedes ( car manufacturing giants ) , put on
the roads ,
autonomous ( driverless ) cars
which will pick up a passenger from anywhere and take him anywhere else
# And summoning this taxi and paying the taxi-fare will be
through a mobile app ?
# When this trend
picks up , people will stop buying " personally owned " cars and existing
car-manufacturers
will themselves , morph into
" Taxi Manufacturers
/ Aggregators / Service Providers "
, in direct competition
with today's Uber / Ola ?
Instead of trying to turn back the clock , I hope the
powers-that-be , read my following blogs and reconsider their
decision
TAKE
AWAY :
* For Kali-Pili Taxi Owners
Stop depending upon " Sarkar Maa-Baap " ! By
harnessing technology , turn the tables on Uber / Ola !
To beat Uber at its own game, pool your fleets all over
India and make available a Kali-Pili within 3 minutes anywhere in India , with
your own Mobile App , " Kuber " ( Kali-Pili Uber )
If you unite , your " Aggregation
" can be 10 times bigger than Uber !
With your clout with the governments ( Central+States )
and with local RTOs , force Uber / Ola , to install in their taxies , Digi-Met tablet meters
and Fare-Calc
applications for calculating fares ( no surge pricing , since Fare-Calc will
be running off the Servers of local RTOs ! )
* For the Policy Makers in Road Ministry
Instead of playing a Regulator ( for over-pricing violations by
Uber / Ola ) , become a Facilitator for the App-based Taxi Aggregation
Industry
Control surge-pricing by increasing
competition ( supply exceeding demand , at all times )
Encourage ( through easy / simple rules )
, 10 more Ubers / Olas to come up in the
country in next 3 months
!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monday, 16 May 2016
DNA ( 16
May 2016 ) carries following news-report :
" LMO for apps to replace fare meters "
In this report , Shri Amitabh Gupta , Controller of
Legal Metrology Organization ( LMO ) , is quoted as follows :
" There are couple of mobile phone-based applications available on
the internet which can calculate the fare based on distance and waiting time.
If genuine applications are verified by the LMO, then any auto
rickshaw or taxi driver can download it on their phones and then use them.
Since they would be
verified by the LMO, there would no question over the issue of malpractice.
This way, gradually the electric metres would give way to such
applications that appears to be useful and are in line with the latest
technology "
Congratulations , Shri Gupta , for this initiative !
This is , indeed , good development and reinforces my following
suggestion / blog :
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday,
14 February 2016
As I observed in my earlier blog ( 05 Feb 2016 ), Theodore
Levitt wrote in his seminal essay," Marketing Myopia " :
If you don't obsolete yourself , someone else will . So keep asking
yourself : What business are we in ?
Levitt gives example of American Railroads , which failed to ask
themselves this question and got obsolete by American Car manufacturers and
American Airlines . No more people wanted to travel by trains !
Whereas it may take 10/20 years before Car Manufacturers
themselves get obsolete ( by manufacturers of Virtual Reality / Augmented
Reality / Holographic / Hepatic devices and web-services - making travelling
unnecessary ) , according to me , taxi-rickshaw Meter Manufacturers are in the danger of getting obsolete
, within the next TWO YEARS !
Expect some Indian Start-Up to come up with a digital taxi meter ( to
be called , DigiMet
? ), resembling a 8" tablet , with a screen on both the sides , visible to
both , the driver and the passenger
DigiMet will be integrated
with :
* GPS based Google Map
* Mobile App ( called , FareCalc ? ) downloaded from the web site of the Authority
fixing " Tariff " (
RTO ? )
Passengers will also need to download / install , FareCalc app on their
smart phones
As requested by the passenger , taxi
driver will enter the destination location , in DigiMet
Immediately , DigiMet will display the
following routes to the desired destination :
* Shortest route ( distance-wise )
* Fastest route (
time wise ) , taking into account the traffic conditions on different routes
DigiMet will also display
, the amount of " fares " payable for each route ( also
displaying tariff : Rs per Km )
Now it is the passenger's turn to select / choose the route that
he wants the driver to take
The taxi / rickshaw will start only thereafter !
At the end of the journey , passenger will have the options to
pay the fare ,
* In
cash
* By entering his Credit Card details into the DigiMet , or
* Through his Mobile Wallet ( using NFC ? )
The Mobile App will also need to have a provision for any "
Waiting Time " charges to be added
When the destination is reached , DigiMet will display :
* Distance travelled
* Time taken
* Waiting Time ( if any )
* RTO approved tariff ( Rs per Km )
* Fare amount payable
Any revision in the tariff will get updated automatically in DigiMet as also on the
smart phone of passenger
For taxis / rickshaws running on Hybrid fuel ( producing less
Co2 ) or Electric Vehicles ( zero emission ) , both , the driver and the
passenger will get " Carbon
Credits " , which will also get displayed on the DigiMet as also on the FareCalc Mobile App on
the smart phone of the passenger ( @ 20 % of the fare payable ? )
These amounts will get transferred to their respective Jan Dhan Bank Accounts (
thru DTB ) , every
quarter
I suppose some variation of DigiMet / FareCalc can be introduced in all State Transport
buses and intra-city Municipal buses
I hope , the current manufacturers of taxi - rickshaw meters are
asking themselves :
What business are we in ?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
01 Aug 2016
www.hemenparekh.in / blogs
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