The Turkey based company, Albayrak is going to start its taxi operations from Lahore, with a 100 strong fleet of vehicles. The taxi service that is to be called ‘A-Taxi’ will formally be launched on February 16, 2016.
The A-Taxi service can be available by simply walking out on the road and getting one to stop, as well as using the Android app to call up a cab to your door step. Access to fare meter, which has disappeared from Taxis in Pakistan, is made available in the A-Taxi for calculation of the fare. Further, a GPS system is also available while the A-Taxi will be available 24 hours a day.
Coming to the fleet of Albayrak, the cars that are painted bright yellow with some black stripes to make them stand out, the cars are Suzuki Swift and Honda City for now and that has some of the current owners of both these cars in a bit of a twist. Similar to what happened when Metro cab first rolled out Toyota Corolla as their taxi and people were worried that running these cars as taxi would affect their image but that doesn’t happen. If anything, this would be beneficial because parts will become common.
Turkish Albayrak is a good company and good to see they are investing in Pakistan.
A good method to make them successful is a little investment by the company to remove those old black & yellow cabs. For the money the company is spending on one City, the company can buy around 16 old Mazda and Datsun, then cancel their registration and sell their parts in the scrap yards. However it has to first seen if it will be illegal and called anti-competitive and market manipulation.
They could reduce the cost of their services by ordering downgrade versions such as removal of alloy rims from the cars. Taxi companies all over the world do so.
Why don’t they use Wagon-R? They would be able to provide a good service in less money, as Wagon-R costs less to buy, less road tax (smaller engine), less fuel consumption, smaller tyres (and other factors leading to lesser overall maintenance cost e.g less no. of spark plugs), while still providing a modern car with ride comfort, good braking, good safety etc, but which is less prone to stealing (again less cost for the company in form of insurance and other costs of crime).
The article leaves some things desired such as link to the official website where people can see latest fares (fuel prices change therefore fares will also keep changing).
May God Bless the Turkish they have to face the real Thakish of LHR….hopefully not another Yellow trap!
What’s with the elitism of “this car is a taxi hence I don’t want to be seen in it”? Mercedes E-class cars are used as taxis in Germany. Toyota Camrys are used as taxis in UAE and Australia. Does that make them undesirable?
If a car is used as a taxi, it generally means it’s a durable, reliable car. But then again, we have people writing articles as to why the XLis look too similar to the Altis Corollas…elitism is one of the cheap traits in our society.
We have a Suzuki swift and it gives terrible mileage. I’m guessing the company didn’t do this research when they decided to include it in their fleet. Which should be a bad move as it will kill their margins!
You are correct about the class difference which is a leftover from the colonial era.
However, “taxi” in Pakistan and “taxi” in other countries is different. In other countries, there is good public transport easily available everywhere. Therefore luxury cars are used as taxis because only those people who are looking for a luxury trip would ever hire a taxi. You can read wikipedia that Toyota Crown was made as a taxi for a taxi company.
And that is why taxi is prohibitively expensive too.
In Pakistan, there is a shortage of public transport and privately-owned transport too. Taxis are ancient cramped carts from 1960s and 1970s without A/C, some even lack headlights and dashboard. Examples are Corolla ’74, Mazda 323 and that RWD Starlet. Therefore any person who can afford something better would never take his/her guest in a taxi.
They can ask for a revamped ECU map. Or for a bigger order, even can ask PS to put an altogether different engine in it.
naiiiiiiiiiii …taxi air city ye nai homa chiyee
All the things in Lahore !! Seems there isnt a city other than lahore worth spending on ! lolx
chief minister Lahore is working in Lahore only
u know whats funny Lahore total taxed collected last yr was 350 billion RS. where as karachi total tax collected was 2300 Billion RS last yr . this is on papaer govt figure .this does not include the black economy of karachi 10 times of gdp of entire pakistan . and lahore gets all projects . u know this is how bangladesh felt in the 60`s and look what happend in 1971 . u will never change . bangladesh has now more foreign genuine reserves , not fudged figures and is more educated and respected in the world..
dear, as it is all about provincial government initiatives. CM SS is very agile and a performer, not a sleeper like great CM QAS 🙂 both are ruling P&S for last 7 years respectively, I think and you can well compare the difference. Tell me who stops QAS or PK or Dr. Malik/Zahri to take such bold initiatives ?? Hope you get the answer 🙂 So let’s put hatred aside and think with your own mind and not like separatists. Everything isn’t right here but still WE LOVE PAKISTAN MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE. If someone doesn’t like here, should start looking to get settle in Bangladesh. (No Offense)
Someone needs economics lessons…tax is “collected” in KHI because the port is there, and excise is collected there. Or are you implying that consumption of imported goods is 8 times higher in Karachi than Lahore? Banks remit tax in Karachi because the head offices are there, not because there’s anything inherently wonderful about the tax being remitted to FBR Karachi division.
This argument of “Karachi ka tax” is old, outdated and outright nonsense.
Dear SSS, You forgot to mention:-
– The amount of Paksitani left Pakistan in past few years from khi in comparison to rest of Pakistan.
– The amount of innocents massacred in Khi vs rest of Paksitan
And above in comparison to the change people of Karachi have brought in the political scenario through their votes.
And by the way, since i am sure you are “not a Pakistani at all” and just trying to peep you nose in, in the greed of not to let go the chance of making differences between Pakistanis, JUST FOR YOUR INFORMATION,
“Pakistanis are much united and awaken than they were ever before” and you don’t worry about our country, regardless of which city we are in, we love our Pakistani Brothers regardless they are in Khi, lhr or any where else. We will In ShaAllah fix our problems as we stand united.
Pakistan Zinda Baad and God bless our nation
Agreed. People should give this a read: http://www.brecorder.com/articles-a-letters/187:articles/1185461:karachi-contributing-70-of-federal-tax-revenue-a-myth/
There are many differences between Karachi and Lahore. Karachi is ethnically diverse and the the ethnic conflict is rather severe, despite Pakistan having a least racist ranking. There is bhatta culture in Karachi. Previously it used to be only MQM, then many other political parties came along, then drug cartels and smuggler groups came along, then the situation became so bad that anybody could demand bhatta from anyone. The situation has slightly improved after Rangers operations in the past year.
Sharif family have totally focused on Lahore. They have at least given some development to their prime constituency, you can compare Karachi, Nodero, and realize this.
There are so many strikes in Karachi, sometimes MQM, sometimes Jaffria Alliance, sometimes hari pagri, sometimes this or the other. Situation recently became better after Rangers conducted operation. Daily there were 25+ target killings in Karachi, does not happen in Lahore. The local government is usually MQM or JI, they always have discord with the provincial government which is usually PPP. This is ethnic conflict which is not present in Punjab because Punjab is all along single ethnicity. Recently some people have started talking about South Punjab and Seraiki race.
Despite all this, there have been projects in Karachi. In the past 15 years, green bus scheme (failed but recently resurrected), KPT underpass, KPT interchange, signal free corridor #1, #2, #3, consisting of many flyovers, interchanges and underpasses, the blasting of Kati pahari passageway to reduce the distance to Orangi, Malir raabta bridge, Northern bypass, and more recently to make it signal free till Quaidabad, rehabilitation of Korangi causeway. These are some projects related to transportation only. In addition, desalination plant at 2-darya, greater Karachi sewerage plan S3, water supply K3 and K4 projects, some initiatives by private investors like Bahria Town, Creek View, Emaar, com3, Vincy, Ocean mall, others.
you should blame government of Sindh for poor work in Karachi and rest of Sindh. Provinces are autonomous and can independently govern development projects in the provinces. do not blame Punjab for it. Blame PPP and MQM for the shit going on there. Select your political representatives sensibly who work according to the wishes of people of Karachi and Sindh