Download - Taxi Driving Skills and Best Practices
Taxi driving skills and Best Practices
Malaysia is one the country that are rapidly develop in various aspects of achievement. It has
many attractions in terms of stable economy, variety of culturals from different races and high
grace human resources. These make Malaysia is one of the most visited place by worldwide
tourists. In order to maintain the sustainability of these factors, the public transportation
sectors must be up to standard especially the taxi sector. When the taxi driver posses a good
reputation the tourists, it actually reflects the quality of local policies and programmes
towards taxi drivers.
A number of factors can affect the quality of taxi service and its ability to serve various types
of trips. There are some performance indicators that can be used to evaluate taxi service. First
is the Availability which means the Number of taxis per capita, or per non-driver in an area. It
is also including the availability of taxis that accommodate people with special needs, such as
wheelchair users. Besides, we need to consider the smoothness of ordering taxi services.
Other important factor is the reliability in view of average dispatch time, and maximum
delays.furthermore, price for an average trip relative to users’ income should be considered
too which is availability of subsidies and discounts for people with special needs (such as
disabilities) and other frequent users.As a passenger, vehicle comfort and cleanliness should
not be neglected.
Taxi Improvements are usually implemented in cooperation between local governments,
which regulate taxi service, and private companies, which provide taxi service. It sometimes
involves transit agencies and other organizations that contract for transportation services. Taxi
improvements may result from changes in taxi regulations, additional funding for subsidized
taxi services, and improvements by taxi companies. Regulatory Reforms may be needed to
eliminate unnecessary regulations and costs to taxi service.
Taxi drivers are exposed to a number of risk factors for lower back pain as they are expose to
prolonged sitting posture due to seat design and extension of working hours. They are also
exposed to whole-body vibration and other manual handling activities like helping passengers
with items of baggage and assisting wheelchair users. This kind of exposure in the end could
give rise to few health problems in term of muscular and nervous system such as Pelvic
Inflammatory disease. As a result their working qualities will be affected and poor services
will be provided to the passengers. Therefore, local authorities should sit together and discuss
about the need of providing regular medical check up and frequend health programmes to the
taxi drivers. There must be also a proper guidelines to the taxi drivers on manual handling
training. This should cover risk factors so that drivers can carry out suitable individual risk
assessments and take appropriate measures to manage the risks.
A number of changes are suggested to made in order to address safety concerns raised by
drivers and passengers. These include a mandatory emergency duress alarms in taxis with
hefty fines for operators found not to have an operational alarm. It is also important to have
regulations which requiring taxis to have GPS tracking, safety monitoring and emergency
response capability. Best practice guidelines for the establishment and operation of safe taxi
ranks, including supervision and CCTV, and management of rank space Changes in
regulation to allow better, safer and more accessible vehicles to be used as taxis, including
purpose-built vehicles with safety features such as a separate driver compartment. Driver
protection screens remaining in place for at least three years. Taxis must use child restraints.