Interestingly, state-run transport giant Mowasalat, which operates Karwa taxis, says the ride for a commuter is free if the meter has not been switched on or is not working for some reason.
Ironically, though, the company that operates some 2,000 taxis has done little to raise awareness about this rule and the result is that some of its taxi drivers exploit people’s ignorance about the regulation to their advantage.
So, commuters are either forced to pay up a lump sum as fare or there is a verbal exchange or often a scuffle.
Incidents are galore where women commuters have been bullied by some drivers after dark to cough up more money.
Even male commuters are coerced into paying more and some cases have recently been reported to police.
Mowasalat and the other private companies that operate taxis get customer complaints about the bad behaviour of their drivers on a regular basis but whether action is taken is not known.
Mowasalat officials were not immediately available for comment but they told a local Arabic daily sometime ago that if their internal probe based on a customer complaint proved that a cabbie was at fault, he could even be dismissed.
That’s in the rule book, but whether a driver has ever been fired and sent packing home is not known.
The company instead blames commuters for falling prey to bullying cabbies and paying the fare even when the meter has not been used.
Drivers also have their share of woes and, prima facie, it appears that it is the system under which they work that forces many to violate rules and exploit commuters.
One company forces its drivers to pay a minimum of QR265 for an 11-hour shift, and petrol is free. A driver can pocket whatever he makes over QR265.
Drivers say it’s hard for them to make QR265 each day, as there isn’t enough business all days of the week. “Sometimes we have to pay the company from our pockets,” said a cabbie not wanting his name in print as that would offend his employers.
Another taxi company asks its drivers to pay QR235 a day but then they must buy the petrol. “It’s a tough call,” a cabbie from this company said, narrating similar woes as the previous taxi driver.
The third taxi operator pays a monthly salary of around QR2,500-2,600, but then the minimum number of kilometres a cabbie must cover in a month is 10,000, which most cabbies say is an uphill task.
Another major customer complaint against drivers is that most don’t speak English, and those knowing Arabic can literally be counted on one’s fingers. Many don’t know the routes as they are new here.
The result is that instead of a cabbie taking a commuter to a place he wishes to go, it is the latter who must guide him to his destination. Often, a commuter is new and doesn’t know the place so he ends up paying double the fare as the taxi would keep detouring.
Most sufferers are people who come here on tourist or business visas.
“Most cabbies not knowing English or not having the global positioning system in their taxis that would guide them to places have tourists relying on taxi services in problems. This is affecting tourism promotion,” said a travel and tourism industry source.
But taxi companies insist they provide training to newly recruited drivers before they are allowed to take to the road. One company says it provides orientation to freshly-arrived cabbies for as many as four months.
Given that the population of the country is 1.94 million and the number of taxis is 3,000, there is one cab for every 647 people.
The figure looks impressive but what makes the taxi business challenging is that private cars are no less than a million, and there are innumerable illegal private taxis operating on the sly, and a vast majority of the population consists of low-income foreign workers who either prefer state-run bus services or rely on share taxis during weekends. In addition, there are limousine services.
Sources say that despite a crackdown by authorities, illegal private taxis have been thriving, albeit they seem to have changed their strategy and way they operated earlier.
It’s hard to get an illegal private taxi on the road, which was the case earlier, as a number of operators have recently been rounded up by law enforcement officials from the Doha International Airport and major shopping centres.
Most illegal taxi operators now have their fixed clientele and only cater to them and would not trust strangers. Users insist they find illegal private taxi operators more reliable than cabbies.
