Apps within wheels

Karnataka’s face-off with new taxi companies shows how State governments continue to be behind the curve on utilising technology to fix public transport

June 03, 2016 12:58 am | Updated December 04, 2021 11:02 pm IST

GET SET, GO! “Anyone carrying a smartphone can potentially aid the process by passively providing data, if authorities are willing to listen.”

GET SET, GO! “Anyone carrying a smartphone can potentially aid the process by passively providing data, if authorities are willing to listen.”

The rapid spread of new mobility services such as Uber and Ola taxis presents a regulatory dilemma for transport administrators. Should they embrace the popular new entrants, or should they try to box them in with regulation, partly to favour traditional operators? >Karnataka’s face-off with the new taxi companies shows that a transparent model of regulation can be difficult to arrive at without a sound assessment of mobility trends.

Globally, app-based taxi services, under the broad category of Commercial Transport Applications, are being accepted by governments as a technology-led disruption that should be mainstreamed to meet the needs of the travelling public. These services have been able to fill some gaps that governments could not — such as providing access to reliable travel at night. They have been able to generate clear insights into what people want in terms of mobility.

At the recent International Transport Forum (ITF) conference in Leipzig, Germany, the head of UITP, the International Association of Public Transport, Alain Flausch, said the “new business model [of Uber] needs to be embraced.” On the other hand, Uber’s U.K. head, Jo Bertram, told Transport Ministers that the company viewed itself as a complement to public transport, hoping to serve the unserved.

‘On demand’ travel Transport departments in India, as in most other countries, and traditional operators, are apprehensive about the new entrants who have the unique benefit of data insight. Governments have so far made policy “blind”, that is, without the benefit of real-time data on demand for buses, urban rail and feeder services. The app-based services have proved agile and superior, while governments struggle to tap into technology. > Government-run services have no concept of “on demand” travel.

In India, the problem is particularly complex. Unlike cities in Europe and the U.K., State governments here failed to invest in modern bus and urban rail systems during the entire period of two decades of economic growth that produced a sharp increase in travel demand. Inevitably, app-based taxi services, riding on the boom on smartphone penetration, captured the enormous demand in cities overnight. Autorickshaws and old taxis faced severe disruption, since the “bottleneck” benefit which they got from a limited number of transport permits disappeared.

Their experience is not unique. In London, there are now over 90,000 Uber cabs, while the iconic and expensive black cabs number 25,000, and unlicensed taxis an estimated 30,000.

When it comes to providing people mobility, governments should be concerned about the fulfilment of public policy objectives — equity, safety, consumer welfare and sustainability. The regulation of new-technology taxi services must meet such policy objectives, rather than be trapped in ideology. Karnataka should be concerned whether the new services are providing more and better connections to protected consumers, and adding jobs.

Employment flexibility A regulation-lite approach to new taxi services could create a pool of drivers who have been vetted and verified by the government and issued a nationally portable identification card. Such identification would add to employment flexibility for the individual, and help governments assess whether proper working conditions are being ensured.

Moreover, there is a continuous stream of data put out by the taxi driver and the user, and it is thus possible to ensure accountability. Karnataka’s approach to restrict employment by > prescribing a two-year residence requirement for a taxi driver obviously fails the test of flexibility.

Transport departments in several States have, ironically, favoured informal employment in the sector for many years, giving regulation less importance. Shared vehicles are thus operated “off the record” by hundreds of operators with no restrictions, competing with government-run transport networks even in some metropolitan cities such as Chennai. They do fulfil a critical role in transporting people, and fill a gap created by failing or absent bus systems. Yet, they are beyond the pale of serious regulation, and governments have little idea of how many people actually use them on a daily basis, since there is no data gathered or shared.

What governments need to recognise is that the transport landscape is today shaped by access to information on real travel needs. Anyone carrying a smartphone can potentially aid the process by passively providing data, if authorities are willing to listen. A transport app for a bus network, for instance, can inform travellers about services in real time, and simultaneously tell the administrators where and when people are going, and where they would like to go. Bengaluru rolled out such an app recently, but stands out as an exception..

Uber and Ola have similar insights to offer, which State regulators could get in anonymised form, to understand urban travel trends.

San Francisco is a city that listened to data from various sources, and found that it was spending $4.5 billion in a year to enable passenger car trips, but only $1.5 billion for collective trips. It became easier to set a policy priority to spend more money on collective, shared travel options, potentially cutting congestion and reducing parking problems. The Chief Innovation Officer at the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, Timothy Papandreou, told the ITF conference that there are “more shared mobility solutions in San Francisco than probably anywhere else in the world”.

The era of State governments using transport departments merely to collect rent, with little insight into demand and supply, and certainly no accountability for public service has been upended by technology. The smart option would be to understand the change, harness the data, and help cities grow around modern bus, rail and taxi networks.

ananthakrishnan.g@thehindu.co.in

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