How Traditional Cabs Are Coping After The Uber Storm?

Remember those days when calling the local cab company seemed to be a burdensome task with infinite wait time? And those days when standing out in the scorching heat or heavy rain shouting out to the cabbies led to no results? Some sure do.

The horror of the pathetic service had created a wide gap between people’s expectation and the kind of service that was being delivered by the traditional cab companies. This gap led to the rise of innovative digital players like Uber and Lyft. They not only identified the servicing gaps, but plugged them in such a way that customer attrition to these online taxi booking services became the norm the world over.

Uber’s Value Proposition

With its easy accessibility and exceptional service, Uber lured the customers with the amazing features aimed at improving their convenience. An app for the customers and the customers. With extremely reasonable prices, it was a service starved for by the customers and fatal for the yellow cabbies. Traditional cabbies who lost all their power overnight were in shock and ultimately cried foul play.

They accused Uber of 'unfair competition' because of its low prices and usage of modern technology. But not much could be done. The truth was that most of the cabbies were taking undue advantage of the commutation plight faced by the people and on facing fierce competition lost their control as quickly as they had gained it.

Fight or Flight For The Traditional Taxis

Having been through such an 'ordeal,' the cabbies engaged themselves in a survival mode. Regulators and local cab authorities started aping Uber's framework model so that they had a chance to at least survive in the market. These kinds of uber app clone came up with an aggressive creation of a taxi dispatch system app-based service which went by the name of X class. The authorities clarified that the app was not specifically designed to compete with Uber but to arm the traditional cabbies to be able to exist in the same market as Uber.

Following the Uber code and the services it provided, yellow cabs updated their services and the technology used in their cars. XClass would basically start as a feasibility study as to whether or not a model as proposed would be suitable in the long run for the taxi drivers. 

What does the app do? It is inspired by the concept of an uber clone app.
It simply sends a cab nearest to your pick-up point which you book via an app and further you will be provided with the estimated cost figure about the set destination which is often equal to that of a regular cab fare.

Some of its features are highlighted here:

• The Quality of Service- It would provide standard cab-hailing app-based services.
  
  

• Flexibility- This app for taxi drivers will follow a deregulated operation process by granting maximum flexibility with the fare pricing, to the drivers as well as the vehicles. But the licensing details of the driver and app will be taken seriously, and drivers with skeptical information on them would not be hired.

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• Digital Processes: The processes would be a 100% digital. From fare calculation to tracking of the driver's/rider's location as well as payment choices would be digital.
  X-Class ensures zero application fees and in-depth information on a particular driver's background check.

• X-Class Services: There has been a provision in X-Class where entrepreneurs looking to enter the taxi market can apply to join with the X-Class services. They would have to register with the DCTC for that and fulfill some necessary requirements.
  
  

• Rates: Competitive rates would be set by the dispatch taxi systems involved in X-Class.
  
  

• Use of their own vehicles: X-Class drivers are allowed to use their own vehicles and get rid of the old traditional technologies earlier used in the traditional yellow cabs.

But, in the present economy, we have seen many drivers going out of business and depressed wages seem to be a common characteristic. The need of the hour seems to be an integrated transportation system wherein all the app-based companies can co-exist providing constructive competition to their opponents.