Staff Reporter
Majority of the working women travelling between and within twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad on daily basis have expressed annoyance over high fares, untrained drivers and low quality services being provided by the media based cab-hailing services introduced few years back.
These cab-hailing services soon after their launch introduced many facilities including low fares, quality pick and drop services, cleanliness and quick responses to attract majority of the customers, however, compromised on all elements with the passage of time.
“I was quite excited over launch of these services in my city and started using it on daily basis due to the suitable fares, decent behaviours of captains and speedy pick and drop services but now situation is totally opposite”, Amina Mukhtar, a working woman said.
Talking to APP, she said increased fares, peak factors due to shortage of vehicles especially on rainy days, delay in arrival of cabs due to inaccurate locations shown on GPS, frequent rides cancellations and unjustified cancellation fee charged were the main issues faced by the customers like me on daily basis.
Saima Naseer, a government employee living in Rawal Town said, “It becomes unnerving for me when I have to hire cab to reach somewhere in emergency and the driver could not understand the exact location and finally I had to cancel the ride at eleventh hour or forced by the driver to do so, paying fine”
“Many of the captains are illiterate and belong to far flung areas so they do not know the exact locations, also they misbehave and drop at the far away locations from the destination,” she said.
She demanded the quarters concerned to address the difficulties being faced by them using online cab service.
Zara Hassan, a working woman who daily use these services for reaching at her office said “Most of the drivers are unfamiliar with the routes or do not know the exact location.”
“They lack road sense and when we try to tell them they start using rough attitude and finally ask us to cancel the ride,” she added.
“Most of the uneducated and untrained drivers are hired without knowing their qualification or police record,” she said.
She urged the online transport service companies to hire trained, educated and professional drivers to win the confidence of passengers particularly female passengers.
When contacted, an official of online transport service, Muhammad Haroon said whenever we receive any complaint from women passenger, the company immediately take proper notice and sometimes impose fines.
He said “We are trying to hire qualified drivers through fixing the eligibility criteria and also in efforts to hire more women drivers to make our service friendly, safer and comfortable for female commuters.”
