City to have radio cabs from September
Indian Express: Come September and the citizens of Pune will have another commuting option within the city — radio cabs. The regional transport authority (RTA) in a meeting held on Friday gave a green signal to radio cabs in Pune with an eye on making intra-city transport easier.
The Pune Mahanagar Parivhanan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) has been given the monitoring power to control the system required for the service. According to RTA member Baba Shinde, the service is expected to start in a month. “The process for calling tenders by agencies to provide cabs will start this week,” he said. The idea of radio cab is simple. There will be three agencies that will provide cabs. A general pocket radio system (GPRS) will be established in these cabs that will be monitored by the control room of PMPML. The citizen will have to call the control room to avail of the service. Through GPRS, the control room will locate a cab in the vicinity of the area where the passenger requires the cab and will send it to him.
“The passenger will have to pay as per kilometre rates as decided by the RTA. We are studying the rates of radio cabs in Delhi and Bangalore to finalise the rates for Pune,” said Shinde. “Each of the three agencies will have to run a minimum of 50 cabs. The cabs will be economical as compared to auto rickshaws as a family of four or five can travel together in a cab, as opposed to the three-seater auto rickshaws. Tentatively the rates would be around Rs 15 per kilometer,” he said.
The RTA also awarded permits to 169 rickshaws in Baramati taluka. However, the decision regarding an increase in rickshaw fare was kept pending and will be discussed on Monday. PMPML chairman Nitin Khade, Pune regional transport officer Chandrakant Kharatmal and deputy commissioner of traffic Manoj Patil were also present for the meeting.
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