In many cities of the country including Delhi-Mumbai, lakhs of people use cab services to go to school-college, office or anywhere else. Of course you might also be taking cab service, but don’t you think that people still have to face many problems? For example,
- Sometimes waiting for a long time and sometimes canceling the ride at the last moment,
- Sometimes the fare increases suddenly and sometimes cancellation charges are levied,
- Sometimes there is dirt in the cab, sometimes bad behavior of the driver and sometimes safety issue.
Despite the increasing competition in cab services among other players including Ola, Uber, Rapido, InDriver and many others, customers do not have much choice. Although the government-backed ONDC has made some efforts by including smaller players, the last-mile services for customers are still not much better.
Have conditions improved or not? survey conducted
In view of the continuous complaints against cab aggregators, Local Circles conducted another survey across the country to find out whether the conditions for customers have improved or not. More than 44,000 responses were received from cab service users in 276 districts of the country. 41% people were from Tier 1 cities, 36% were from Tier 2, while 23% of users were from Tier 3, 4 and rural areas. Of the total respondents, 64% were men, while 36% were women.
Biggest problem- canceling the ride
A large number of app taxi users are facing problems like drivers canceling rides, fare increases and long waiting times. In the survey of local circles, people using cab services were asked what kind of problems they had to face in the last 12 months.
3 out of every 4 users i.e. 75% were upset due to the driver canceling the ride. Apart from this, 62% users complained about increase in fare, 48% about long waiting, 29% about dirtiness of cab, 23% about cancellation charge.
Under what circumstances was the ride cancelled?
People were also asked why the driver canceled your ride or asked you to do so? 37% said that the driver canceled the ride after asking ‘where to go’. 5% cited the reason for not choosing cash payment. Whereas 42% gave both the reasons behind this.
That is, if analyzed, 84% people faced the problem of ride cancellation either due to destination or due to not choosing cash payment option or due to both the reasons.
Guidelines were made in 2020
Local circles had first raised these customer concerns with the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) in 2019. The government came out with Motor Vehicle Aggregator Guidelines in November 2020. In this, surge pricing was capped at 1.5 times more than the basic fare. Also, a rule was made to impose a fine of up to 10% (maximum Rs 100) on canceling the ride. However, these guidelines are not applicable in most of the states, due to which customers are upset and complaints continue.
Why are the guidelines inadequate?
A survey of local circles in April 2022 revealed that 71% of app taxi users were facing problems with ride cancellation. In May 2022, consumer regulator CCPA issued notices to some platforms, but its impact was limited.
Till now only Delhi government has come out with cab policy. However, there is no provision to stop drivers from canceling the ride. Based on input from both platforms and drivers, there is no fixed penalty for drivers who cancel rides.
Government should implement common standards!
According to the survey of local circles, 70% of app taxi users believe that despite the government issuing notices to taxi aggregators on complaints, there was not much impact and customers still have to face a lot of problems.
82% of app taxi users want the government to implement basic common standards for services like taxi aggregators.
