Taxi booking apps in Singapore has been been growing a lot in the past few months, with GrabTaxi and Easy Taxi leading the charge. Taxi riders have been turning to these app for its convenience in flagging down taxis and because of that, both GrabTaxi and Easy Taxi are becoming more and more valuable each day.
A new taxi booking app wants a part of that too.
According to Tech In Asia, London-based Hailo, is secretly charting its expansion plan to Singapore and reportedly looking to hire a general manager in the country. Similar to other taxi booking apps already available in Singapore, Hailo lets you enter your current location and the next thing you know, a cab will be on its way to pick you up.
“The person will oversee customer acquisition and market expansion in Singapore. He or she will work with regulators to ensure that the company doesn’t run afoul of the law. The GM will also have to build a team of public relations, marketing, operations, and customer support staff, while managing partnerships with taxi drivers,” wrote Terence Lee of Tech In Asia.
It is however unclear when the app will officially launch in Singapore.
Taxi Drivers Are Embracing The Technology
Several innovations have taken place in the Singapore mobile app industry this year, notably, the taxi industry. Third party taxi booking apps such as GrabTaxi and Easy Taxi have taken the front stage in giving traditional taxi operators a run for their money.
These taxi booking apps provide taxi drivers with a driver-specific account, where they will be alerted by customer taxi booking requests nearby through the app. This provides drivers with the extra convenience: they can bring their smartphone along with them when they are taking a toilet break or lunch break.
Traditionally, the taxi operator’s taxi dashboard (for example, ComfortDelgro) where all customer’s taxi booking requests are directed to, is mounted inside the taxi: the only way for taxi drivers to be updated and notified of any advance bookings or any pick-up requests is if he is in the car itself. Third party taxi booking apps such as GrabTaxi and EasyTaxi changed that. Drivers can now have access to job requests on their mobile phone.
As Terence of Tech In Asia pointed out, while governments worldwide have treated technology with suspicion, Singapore has embraced them. Recently, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong also said in a speech:
“We have taxis, good service by taxi drivers but there is also competition from Lyft, from Uber, from apps. Technology is changing all our jobs and these changes are going to happen whether we like it or not. And we cannot stop this change, we cannot escape this change. The only way is to know which way the world is going, use this to our advantage and get there where we need to be, faster than our competitors and that is what the government is trying to do.”
