Tag: taxi

Über and the private car hire services

You know all those private cars for hire at Soekarno Hatta airport? All those drivers offering “taxi” service? They’re not so bad. Sure they’re a bit more expensive than regular taxis but after a couple of tries, the cost to get me home from the airport isn’t that much more expensive.

Instead of paying 100k plus toll fare, I paid 150k including toll fare and because the fare is agreed upon prior to getting into the car, if we get stuck on a traffic jam, they don’t charge more. It also takes out the frustration of having to wait for ages to get a cab.

Come to think of it, all they need is legitimacy and it’s definitely not difficult. If you think of them as private cars for hire instead of a taxi service, something more like Golden Bird as opposed to Blue Bird, the cost makes more sense.

If you have their phone number, which is direct to the driver instead of the company, you can ask them to pick you up anywhere in the city and go to any place.

In fact, I think these companies are only one step away from becoming something like Uber or Lyft. The only thing lacking is a centralized booking system with accompanying smartphone apps.

There is of course the issue of trust. Because the system is still manual and there’s no immediate or recognizable assurance that they are certified drivers for legitimate transport service companies, there’s no guarantee you won’t get a creepy guy or even a criminal on the driver’s seat. – Read on Path.

Supir taxi yang enggak tau jalan itu…
Ibaratnya koki yang enggak punya indra penciuman.

This past year or so (maybe longer), there’s been a flood of new taxi drivers in Jakarta. You are more likely to get a cab with a new driver than experienced ones (unless you happen to be on the premium cabs, you’ll know which ones they are from sight). As a result, a lot of them don’t know the roads.

Contrary to popular belief, Jakarta is technically not a city, it’s a province made up of five big cities, South, East, West, North, and Central Jakarta, and one regency, the Thousand Islands. Unless you regularly do cross-town runs, you’re not expected to know the roads in other parts of town. If you’re a cabbie though, you’re supposed to know major landmarks, tourist attractions, significant buildings, and malls (there’s more than 100 of them).

It’s a wonder then that plenty of regular cabbies don’t know these places, and these include those of Jakarta’s most well known cab company, the Blue Bird Group.

More than half the time I get on a BBG cab I have to give directions to the driver because he’s new, but these are not for obscure or specific destinations. These are areas like Kemang, Pondok Indah, Blok M, Sudirman, Senayan, all the major locations of South Jakarta. It’s like a New York cabbie not knowing where Manhattan, Queens, or Brooklyn are, or a Melbourne cabbie not knowing how to go to Fitzroy, Collingwood, South Yarra, or Glenferrie from the city.

Last year I got dropped off 10 minutes into what would have been a 40 minute cab ride from Senayan to Pondok Indah because the guy had no idea where Pondok Indah is and he said he knows every road in Jakarta except in the South. Fucking ridiculous isn’t it?

What the fuck was the guy doing in the south if he had no idea where to go in that part of town? He should have just pissed off back to wherever he came from rather than taking me on board.

Friends have told stories of how they had to tell cabbies how to get from Blok M (a major transit hub) to Ratu Plaza, a 30 year old landmark that’s at the tip of Senayan. That’s a 10-15 minute ride with regular traffic. The country’s biggest and most well known stadium, the GBK, is in Senayan and these drivers had no idea where it is.

So yes, as the quote above from Alfa says, “a cabbie who doesn’t know the roads is like a chef with no taste buds.”

Source: chibialay