STRAIGHT TORQUIN’
FOR A HASSLE FREE RIDE
THE SOLUTION: USE TAXI APPS, ONE OF THE SAFEST AND MOST RELIABLE WAYS TO BOOK A CAB
F or the many tourists that visited Malaysia during with the recent Formula One Grand Prix at the Sepang International Circuit, there should have been a travel advisory warning them that using taxis in Kuala Lumpur could well be more dangerous than the motorsport itself.
Recent crimes against taxi passengers include rape and robbery by criminals driving around in stolen taxis. There are also unscrupulous taxi drivers who refuse to use the meters. Avoid the taxi ranks at KLCC and the Pasar Seni because the taxi drivers who wait there are united against using meters.
While I would say that most of the taxi drivers who cruise around are professional drivers, that’ s because I’ m a native Malaysian who speaks Bahasa Malaysia, Cantonese and English, I wonder how the taxi driver treats his foreign tourist customer who is clueless about direction and distance.
If the letters to the editors tell a story, there are more knocks than praises regarding Malaysian taxi services.
One solution that has presented itself is the use taxi apps, the most popular and user-friendly of which is MyTeksi.
MyTeksi
it processes
2,000 taxi bookings per day
300 people use myteksi to the airport every day
40,000 people have downloaded its ios and android apps.
Visit http:// goo. gl / GJwod for more details. downloading myTeksi’ s app( for smartphones and tablet users): Visit http:// myteksi. com
Regardless of whether you are a tourist or a native, so far it’ s the safest and most reliable way to book a taxi. A taxi app is something that you download from the internet onto your smart phone and use to book a taxi. It’ s smart because it uses the GPS chip that’ s in your android-based Samsung or Apple i-Phone to locate where you are and where you want to go.
Summonsing the 3G in your smartphone, it uses the WiFi-enabled phone to communicate your location to the service provider, in this case MyTeksi, the first mover in Malaysia.
MyTeksi then seeks out the 1,000 taxis that are in its network and prompts those that are within a 15km radius of your pick-up location. Simultaneously, the system will tell you the approximate distance of your journey and the estimated cost of the trip.
When a taxi driver decides that he wants the job, he’ ll respond to the MyTeksi prompt. The automated system will then update your smartphone with the following information:
“ Taxi HWD6977 is on its way & it is 2.9km away from you. Please contact your driver @ 01077319xx. Thank you for using MyTeksi.”
In a newer version of the MyTeksi app, the information is displayed in a more user friendly way with the following information displayed in a table format:
“ Your taxi will arrive in approximately: 7 minutes Plate Number: HWE82XX * Driver: M. Maulana Telephone: 01077319XX * Type: Budget From: 23, Persiaran Mahagoni, Petaling Jaya To: Jaya33 The fare for your ride( 15km) is estimated to be between RM18 and RM22.”
(* Numbers have been changed to protect identities.)
YAMIN VONG
EDITOR | yamin @ cbt. com. my
Taxi apps represent the congruence of smartphone and GPS technologies. We talk about how GPS will revolutionise the world, how it will make directories obsolete.
MyTeksi has competitors too. Taximonger is one, and the latest is Unicablink which needs the taxi driver to pay a monthly RM180 rental for the enabled Garmin GPS.
As taxi driver Mohamad noted,“ The MyTeksi app is with me, on my smartphone. It’ s not stuck in the car.
“ I’ ll wake up at 4am and switch on the phone. As I’ m brushing my teeth, I’ ll check MyTeksi for those who want rides to KLIA.
“ The driver who’ s using the Unicablink must be in the car to use the Garmin which is fixed to the car’ s dashboard; with my smart phone I can start work even when I’ m in the house.
“ There are other taxi apps in Malaysia, but I like MyTeksi best because I don’ t have to pay RM180 a month. I only pay a prepaid amount which is deducted when I accept a job.
“ Now most of my trips are booked with MyTeksi. Then, when there is nothing suitable for me, I’ ll go back to my base at the Curve.”
One advantage of the Unicablink system is its dedicated GPS. This directs the way to a location in a clearer manner than the small China-made smartphone that Mohamad used.
MyTeksi was started with a mission to revolutionise the taxi industry.
The runner-up in the 2011 Harvard Business School Business Plan Contest, one of the founders of MyTeksi is Anthony Tan.
“ Our great-grandfather was a taxi driver and we appreciate our family’ s humble beginnings. I’ m fascinated about the taxi industry,” said Tan, a Harvard MBA graduate, and a respected member of the Tan Chong family.
4 M N M 2 0 1 3 | I S S U E 3