Al Million and Alijarah, the other two companies that are operating a fleet of 500 taxis each, have been granted permission by Mowasalat to add another 150 taxis each to their fleet.
The two companies yesterday signed formal agreements with Mowasalat.
Hamad Al Emadi, CEO of Alijarah, and Abdul Khader Mydeen, Managing Director of Al Million, signed the deals with Nasser Al Khanji, Strategy and Business Development Director of Mowasalat.
Al Emadi, meanwhile confirmed reports that Alijarah was going ahead with plans to take over Petro Qatar.
By the end of this year, Qatar will have 1,800 taxis operated by the three private companies, that will add to the 2,000 plus Karwa cabs, Al Khanji told a press conference.
The franchise firms were initially allowed to operate a maximum 500 taxis each.
Mowasalat’s permission to expand their fleet is based on the performance of the two companies, said Al Khanji.
“We are keen to promote healthy competition in the industry, provide more options to customers and improve the quality of the taxi service,” he added.
Al Khanji later told The Peninsula that the third franchise company, Petro Qatar will start its services by June-end with an initial fleet of 300 taxis and add another 200 by the end of this year. This will take the total number of private sector taxis to 1,800.
He said Karwa had no immediate plans to reduce its fleet of taxis to allow more space to private operators.
“On the contrary we are adding more vehicles to our fleet. However, we may reduce the numbers in future, if there is a need, based on an analysis of the market and the supply-demand factor. “We want to provide quality taxi service but we also want to make our services financially viable,” said Al Khanji.
According to statistics released by the company, Karwa taxis transported 12,000,000 passengers (assuming that a single journey carried two passengers) and 11,000,000 people used its public buses last year.
For the future, the company sees an effective combination of public mobility beginning from short to medium range foot walks, smaller public transport modes on smaller roads, and linking them with bus stops, bus rapid transit, and metro, train and water taxis.
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