Careem to offer drivers rewards for good service

One of the most important issues faced in tourism and daily life in Turkey is complaints against taxi drivers. None of the sanctions of local administrations and security forces have been able to solve the problems, including cherry picking, unnecessary route extensions, and avoiding spots with traffic. As a result, people have turned to foreign companies that provide transportation services over the internet. Drivers of Careem which, along with Uber, is one of the key players in the industry, have thus been threatened and their passengers harassed. Just a few weeks ago, alarming news of victimization at the hands of taxi drivers appeared on national television channels.

Because punishment and sanctions over this issue appear to be failing, the sector is thinking whether rewards can be the solution, an approach that seems to be working for Careem in some Middle Eastern countries like Jordan. Now, the Dubai-based com- pany is planning to expand the program to Turkey, where it operates yellow taxi vehicles rather than VIP transportation with luxury vans.

Founded in 2012, Careem currently operates in 120 cities in more than 15 countries, including North Africa, Turkey, Pakistan and the Gulf Region, according to Ibrahim Manna, its emerging markets director. The company currently has a total of 1.1 million drivers on its network which serve an estimated 25 million users.

In a wide-ranging interview with daily DUNYA, Manna discussed Careem’s plans to improve the image of the taxi industry and how carrots work better than sticks in improving the quality of their drivers.

Award application from Jordan One of the key challenges facing online transportation services is a lack of training for drivers, Manna said. Unlike traditional taxi services in European Union countries, the U.S. and Japan, where drivers receive 4 to 5 years of education, drivers registered to online ride-hailing services like Careem are often everyday citizens with little knowledge of how taxi services should work. Manna said Careem would continue to make significant investments to improve the image and services it provides, in part by training taxi drivers via various channels and establishing a system in which taxi drivers with high customer satisfaction are rewarded. “Users will be able to evaluate taxis,” he said. “Thus, we will be able to evaluate the performance of our colleagues. We have similar practices in place in every country we operate in. For example, in a project we started in Jordan, we give an automobile as a gift to taxi drivers who receive full marks on their daily evaluations. We want to bring a similar program to Turkey.”

Istanbul’s ar stocrat c dr vers: Russ ans

Careem currently operates in cities like Istanbul and Adana, which have a high concentration of taxis. But Careem’s goal is “to be all over Turkey,” Manna said.

Taxi usage in Turkey has a rather old history. The taxi driving job, which started at the end of the 1910s, experienced significant change after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 in Russia. Nearly 200,000 tsarist supporters who escaped from the country settled in Istanbul. The Russians, most of them aristocratic and educated in Europe, could both speak a few foreign languages and had a cosmopolitan understanding of night life. Russian chauffeurs, taxi drivers with elegant clothes, became the favorite of Istanbul residents. Because of their success, they established the Russian Taxi Association.

When you set foot in a country or city, the first impression you get is from taxi drivers. Western countries have thus imposed strict and compulsory training programs on drivers. As a taxi driver in Chicago once said: “It’s easier to be a governor than a taxi driver.”