Radio taxi company Meru Cabs has tied up with local AC taxis in Kolkata to make the latter available on its platform. Meru will act as a booking facilitator and provide its technology to the taxis, where users can book through the Meru app. Users will be charged Rs 20 extra as a convenience fee over the metered fare. The taxis will come to pick the users up at their prefered location instead of hailing them from the street, similar to Ola and Uber’s services. Users will also get features like trip tracking and emergency contacts. Meru will train the taxi drivers in customer service and etiquette, as well as the use of technology from its Meru Training Academy. Meru Cabs currently claims to have 20,000 cabs across 23 cities, where it has completed over 35 million trips in the country. Ola’s tie up with Kolkata taxis: Note that in August, online cab aggregator Ola had introduced Kolkata’s yellow taxis on its platform, where it claimed to have over a 1,000 yellow taxis on the app already with plans to register overall 5,000 taxis by November this year. Ola provided the taxi drivers with smartphones to help them accept rides and navigate to the location. Its not clear if there will be overlap of taxis working with both Ola and Meru or if the drivers will continue to engage only with one platform. Taxis G7 alliance: Last month, Meru partnered with France’s Taxis G7 to launch eCabs, a global alliance…
