New metered taxis to hit Oman roads this month

Muscat: Oman is set to receive its first metered taxi this month, according to Ingenuity Technologies LLC, which has been awarded the contract to operate taxi services by the Ministry of Transport, along with Mwasalat.
Speaking to the Times of Oman, Yousuf Al Hooti, project manager for Marhaba Taxi said 150 taxis with their drivers are all set to hit the road soon.
“The taxis have been painted and around 150 drivers have also been trained. Right now, we are testing the applications.”
Ingenuity Technologies LLC has obtained the licence to run taxis at the Sultan Qaboos Port, hotels and will also provide on-call taxi services.
Marhaba Taxis can be booked using a mobile app or by calling the call centre. Passengers will have to pay OMR3.5 for the first five kilometres, and after that, passengers will have to pay 500 baisas per km. The company plans to run 600 taxis in Oman.
“As we have finished training 150 taxi drivers, we are thinking of launching these on the road. We will slowly grow our fleet,” said Al Hooti.
There were, however, mixed responses from orange and white taxi drivers. While some of them are worried as a “small” amount of business will be shifted to Marhaba Taxis, others said it won’t hit them as the tariffs charged by Marhaba Taxis are high.
“Besides, these are tourism taxis that will also provide on-call taxis, so we are not worried,” Mohammed, a taxi driver in Ruwi, said.
Another taxi driver, Suleiman, however, admitted that a small amount of business would shift. “However, the bigger threat to us is the Mwasalat buses,” he added.
Regarding how Marhaba Taxis’ app will work, officials said customers can download the free app on their mobile and request a taxi.
Alternately, a customer can book the taxi by calling the call centre and then entering the destination. The information for this request will be sent to all the taxis under this service that are in the area, allowing them to accept passengers if they are free to take on a new customer. When the taxi driver accepts the request, the information of the driver, expected arrival time, vehicle details and how much they will have to pay will be sent to the customer.