DOHA: With a phased increase in the number of taxis in the country, public transport company Mowasalat is planning to set up a new company to monitor the quality of taxi service, a senior Mowasalat official said yesterday.
Currently four private companies, besides Karwa are operating taxis and two more private companies will soon enter the fray, Ali Bahzad, director, Taxi and Limpousine Services at Mowasalat told the International Association of Public Transport conference at Qatar National Convention Center. Each of these private companies will be operating 800 taxis under a five-year agreement with Mowasalat.
Mowasalat is not likely to further expand its fleet of Karwa taxis and restrict them to the existing 1,200 to allow the franchise firms to expand their business, hinted Bahzad.
“The current Karwa fleet is 1,200 with additional fleet of about 3,000 from our franchises. We would maintain Karwa taxi to 1,200 and will allow our franchisee family to expand business opportunity and add more taxis gradually to reach a total of 7,000 before Qatar hosting 2022 FIFA World Cup,” said Bahzad.
Mowasalat has set up a taxi management office which is responsible for laying down quality standards for taxi service. This office functions like the Road Transport Authority in the UAE, said Behzad, giving a presentation on the salient features of taxi transport in Qatar.
“A new company is to be launched to manage and monitor quality of taxi service in the country,” said Bahzad. He said a unified call center (UCC) for all the taxis will be launched soon.
In another presentation on Qatar’s Bus Action Plan 2015-2020, Mohammed Bashar Ourabi, Strategic Planner at Mowasalat said that Mowasalat plans to add 300 public buses every year taking the total number of buses to 1,900 by 2020. This is in an addition to the school buses being operated by Mowasalat. The total number of buses including school buses is expected to rise from the existing 3,000 to 8,000 by 2020.
The Bus Action Plan also includes increasing the number of bus depots to six and bus stations to 11. Currently there is only one bus depot and one bus terminal.
“A main challenge for future is to reduce the travel time for bus passengers, which at present is not impressive, to effectively compete with private cars,” said Ourabi. The three day UITP public transport for large events summit and showcase and UITP Taxi Conference and Showcase will conclude today.
The Peninsula
