The Bengal Chamber of Commerce & Industry on 4th March 2016, in a brainstorming session with the Department of Transport, Govt. of West Bengal and other relevant Stakeholders, including Taxi Unions, presented a business proposal for the “Taxi Commuter Connect Platform”, an innovative platform for Public Taxi Operators, popularly known as yellow and blue/white taxis which are outside the purview of app-based service at the moment.

Over the past few years there has been a growing fleet of Mobile Application based (App-based) Taxi Service providers in Kolkata. Popularity and preference for App-based taxis are also on the rise. Key advantages of App based taxi drivers remain the availability of a platform for customer sourcing. However there remains an estimated 30,000 taxis (yellow and blue/white taxis) which are outside the purview of such customer sourcing platforms. With this proposal, The Bengal Chamber is offering the prospect of bringing to these taxis a platform for customer sourcing to provide them with a level playing field with other App-based taxi services. Such a platform is also expected to provide customers with an option to remotely locate and call a Yellow Taxi without compromising safety, comfort, reliability and cost competiveness.

Having duly examined the city transportation and difficulties for both Yellow Taxi Drivers & Commuters, we are confident that our proposed platform will largely address their needs. Our goal is to provide a technology platform that helps Yellow Taxis with a competitive edge in customer sourcing through efficient information management and intelligent trend-based insights – all in real time. By availing our platform, Kolkata can experience:
⁒   Improved Driver Commuter Interaction
⁒   Less refusal, Yellow Taxi at door step
⁒   Safe, reliable, comfortable, sustainable and accessible transport.
⁒   Optimized City Area Coverage.
⁒   Rationalized Taxi Polarization within the City.
⁒   Potential drop in use of Personal Vehicles.
⁒   Reduced Parking issues at Taxi Stands
⁒   Enablement of Smarter City Transportation.

By implementing such platform, Yellow and blue/white taxis become more convenient, comfortable, accessible and understandable for everyone. The number of passengers using these taxis should increase and citizens would be able to embrace their utility to society, thereby, transforming the way Kolkata moves!

The Stakeholders present in the session included representatives from prominent Taxi Owners Associations (Calcutta Taxi Owners, Progressive Taxi Owners Association, Bengal Taxi Owners Association) National Informatics Centre (NIC), Kolkata Police (ACP-Traffic and DC-Traffic1) along with Shri Alapan Bandyopadhyay, IAS, Principal Secretary, Transport, Govt. of West Bengal and other key officials from the Department of Transport, Govt. of West Bengal. The session was also very well covered by the Media. A two member task force represented by officials from the Department of Transport, Govt. of West Bengal and Kolkata Police was also being created to take the project forward.