QUEEN'S ROAD: In August, a taxi service is coming with an embedded SOS feature that gets activated if you scream. Wings Radio Cabs, providing staff transport for the city’s IT and ITES professionals for the past four years, is introducing radio cabs next month with a voice-activated security system.
“In most cabs, you need to physically press a panic button,” said Arun Kharat, founder of Wings Travels Management India. “But here, if you scream, a snapshot from inside the cab is captured and sent to the control room of the company.”
The mechanism is equipped with filters, however. So if there is loud music or noise from outside, the system is not mistakenly set off. Even if it is, the team in control room analyses it for false alarms.
“If it seems like the passenger is in trouble, the staff dispatch other cabs nearby to aid them,” Kharat said. The location of each cab is tracked using a GPS-enabled system. That app also, available on Google Play, has a panic button.
Wings is different from popular radio taxis in the city, like Ola, Uber, Taxi For Sure and Meru, in that it’s not a mere aggregator.
“When we started talking to government officials about including cab services, their main concern was accountability,” said Kharat. “Now the trend is aggregator-oriented, where software companies are using taxis as their base.”
So nearly the entire fleet is owned by the company, and around 600 employees have been hired, pan India, to monitor drivers who have been police-verified, he said. “It is important to have your drivers under control,” he said.
However, the drivers have an opportunity to turn owners after three years if their behaviour and performance reflect well.
In addition to the regular cab services, the Pune-based Wings, which claims to have made about Rs 150 crore last year, has launched Wings Sakhi — a for-women-by-women cab service. In Chandigarh, it has a service called Jai Jawan — where retired army personnel take the wheel. “Nearly 90 per cent of what we made last year is from staff transport and radio taxis.”
In Bengaluru, it’s too early to think about new initiatives. “We want to let whatever we’ve come up with to roll out first. We introduced the voice-activated software here, given that it’s an IT hub,” he said.
Wings fares
The first 3 km of a ride costs you Rs 100, after which it’s Rs 18 for every km. At night, rates go up by about 25 per cent.