While safety processes, technology features and stringent verification of drivers are important factors, significant effort and investment needs to be made in training drivers across the country to bring about a change in their behaviour By Sudipta Dev
The recent Uber cab incident in New Delhi, has not just shocked the citizens of the country, but has also shaken up the regulators who have been coming up with many new dictats. It is however not just the stringent rules that can ensure the vulnerable segments (women, children and elderly) can reach their destination safely, but the problem has to be tackled at different levels, the first being training of drivers. “The drivers are mostly migrant workers whose value system at times is not developed for a large city. Therefore it is important to make them aware of how things are in the large city,” says Siddhartha Pahwa, CEO, Meru Cabs. The company has a four-day training for drivers which includes modules on defensive driving, etiquette and soft skills with special focus on how to deal with women passengers. Significantly, almost 40 per cent of the company’s passengers happen to be women.
Further, complaints made against a driver are categorised and every six months the driver has to undergo a refresher training. “The behaviour pattern of the driver is analysed with regards to the type of complaints. We specifically work on those areas so that focused improvement can be made,” mentions Pahwa, pointing out that as a leader of the industry, Meru Cabs has been working with regulators across the country, asking them to spend on the government side to improve the overall training of drivers. He reminds that when Beijing Olympics happened the Chinese government spent three years in training drivers and significant change was seen in their behaviour. “We have been working with the National Skill Development Council for now more than a year. Even if the drivers are not working with us we have gone and imparted our training to them so that overall quality of drivers in the country go up. We have been requesting the government and regulators to keep a centralised database of all drivers to whom commercial licenses have been issued and if there is a way to link criminal records with them then that should happen,” states Pahwa. An important aspect is good quality identification process of drivers, which includes their address proof, police verification, PAN card, Aadhaar card, etc.
Technology for safety
Technology plays a critical role in improving safety and reliability. “We also use technology to create safety features for passengers, not just women passengers but even for elderly people and children,” affirms Pahwa. In March 2013, the Trip Tracker facility was launched. The second feature introduced was the In Case of Emergency button, which sends an alarm to two trusted people, who can know the location of the traveller and at what speed she/ he is travelling. The next important implementation is using the Aadhaar data of the drivers and their biometric verification. “The data is already stored in the Aadhaar data bank. Every time a driver would want to start a trip in the morning, they would need to identify themselves using the Aadhaar card, their finger print, etc. And only then they will be able to start the trip. Finger print scanning and retina scan of the driver can be done inside the car,” informs Pahwa. The company has already done the test pilot for this and is in discussions with Khosla Labs, which is developing more comprehensive solution for the system. “Our intent is that by January 2015 we will start implementing this feature in our vehicles and by March next year we will complete it in all our vehicles,” adds Pahwa.
Pointing out that many of the technology features are not expensive and even smaller operators can implement these safety solutions, Pahwa says, “The mindset of an organisation and a team should be that it has to be followed and implemented. This is only a one time expense, and does not cost too much. For example, a trip tracker facility costs Rs two for every trip. For a trip of Rs 200, can we not spend Rs two for the safety of passengers?”
Meru has been growing a city a month and will continue this growth rate. The target is 50 cities in the country where radio taxis services are required.