Attractive methods for tracking minibus taxis for public transport regulatory purposes

Abstract

When a country, province or municipality wants to have a integrated public transport system in place, all modes of transport should work together with the aim of moving passengers effectively and hassle free to and from their destinations. Several provincial governments and municipalities are in the process of developing efficient public transport (PT) systems like for instance BRT corridors and rolling out revised operator contracts. All of these efforts require electronic on-board equipment for integrated ticketing purposes. Some PT systems requires GPS tracking for the monitoring of route adherence. As the minibus taxi industry carries currently 65% of all public transport passengers, they can not be ignored in these plans. Although some taxi owners are using electronic tracking equipment these are for private fleet management and are paid from their own pockets. The problem lies in the fact that the taxi owners had been largely self-regulating and are not keen to be monitored by authorities. The authors are researching the willingness of taxi owners to install on-board equipment on their taxis which links to a public transport back-office. Research by means of implementation is done to discover ways to utilise the on-board equipment to generate an extra income for the taxi owner. This generation of revenue for the owner should outweigh the negative aversion the owner has to being monitored by authorities. The attractiveness of applications such as electronic advertising and SMS 'taxi calling' are being tested