Increase service parking in high-demand areas

RTA approves conversion of 80% of taxi trips to online booking

Matar Al Tayer: Initiative contributes to reducing wasted kilometers, fuel consumption and carbon emissions

Dubai's Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has approved a plan to gradually convert Dubai's taxi service from road availability to online booking, reaching 80% in the coming years.

The move is the culmination of the success of Hala e-booking service, which accounted for 30% of all taxi trips in Dubai in 2022.

Mattar Al Tayer, Director General and Chairman of the Board of Directors at DEWA, said: "The expansion of the provision of e-booking service for taxis, instead of providing them on the road, comes to enhance the efforts of the Government of Dubai in transforming into the smartest city in the world, and to keep pace with the global transformation in the field of transport planning in cities, in terms of facilitating transportation for individuals and reducing dependence on private vehicles, as well as achieving happiness for residents, providing distinguished services to tourists, and enhancing customer service, stressing that e-booking has become the most effective tool to harmonize the offer. With demand, an efficient system to provide easy service to customers in obtaining taxis.

He added: "Providing the taxi service through electronic booking contributes to raising the efficiency of taxis in the Emirate of Dubai, in terms of ease of finding and booking vehicles electronically, increasing the percentage of trips in which the waiting time for the arrival of the vehicle is three and a half minutes or less, raising the rate of customer happiness and satisfaction, in addition to reducing wasted kilometers, reducing fuel consumption, and carbon emissions, in addition to providing advantages to customers such as the possibility of direct electronic payment through the application, determining the most appropriate route for the trip and the possibility of participating in The itinerary with others, showing vehicle and driver information, the ability to evaluate the service and the driver, in addition to supporting DEWA's efforts to achieve integration between the various means of transport, and providing a short trip service: (first and last mile) that helps mass transport users to reach their final destinations.

Al Tayer explained that the initiative to transform the electronic booking of taxi services took into account the best international experiences in this aspect, as the rate of providing taxi service through electronic reservation in Singapore reached 80%, and it also underwent a comprehensive study and evaluated the experience of Hala e-booking company, to determine the operating system, organization and technology, and the company has achieved continuous growth in the number of its users, since its launch in August 2019, and recorded 11% of the total number of taxi trips in 2020, then It rose to 18% in 2021, reaching 30% in 2022, noting that Dubai's 11,662 taxis last year made 105 million trips.

According to the plan, the authority will allocate a fleet of taxis to provide the electronic reservation service only, according to specific and clear mechanisms and indicators for the service, and Hala will market the e-booking service by developing new channels in order to attract a larger number of users and incentive initiatives for drivers, and the plan includes identifying areas where the e-booking service is available only, providing parking for regular taxis, and others related to e-booking vehicles, increasing parking within areas with high demand, and identifying these parking lots on applications. Smart Authority and Hala Company.

Booking Mechanism

The user downloads the Careem app via his mobile phone and creates his own account, then the process of booking (Hala) vehicles is in the list of vehicle types, then confirm the location, specify the destination location, choose the payment method, then press the (Yala) button, so that the customer receives a text message via the phone with the driver's details and the reservation.

The e-booking service has many features including confirmation of the reservation in less than 10 seconds, identification of the nearest vehicle, tracking the flight route, in addition to saving time and effort for motorists in roaming abroad.