PUNE: Prepaid autorickshaw booth at the Pune railway station is getting a good response from passengers. The booth was opened three months ago with help of city traffic police and Pune railway division. Around 200 passengers book autorickshaws every day from the kiosk. The booth is managed by city-based start-up ‘CityGlide Auto’.
The purpose of starting the booth at the station was to impede overcharging by autorickshaw drivers. The booth has all information including contact details, permit number and registration number. The booth was inaugurated in the last week of October in 2019.
The idea of starting a booth was proposed by an autorickshaw driver Rahul Shitole who came from an engineering background. Earlier, he joined hands with Pune city traffic branch to launch a cell phone application on the lines of ‘Ola’ and ‘Uber’ for auto-rickshaw bookings with the motto of ‘By Auto Driver for Auto Drivers.’
This prepaid booth also helps commuters if they forget their valuables inside the autorickshaw. The passenger can call the customer care number or even the driver, on finding any valuables, can call the customer care number and get the number of commuters or autorickshaw drivers.
On Monday, a Vadodara resident arrived at Pune railway station and booked an autorickshaw from the booth. He forgot a bag containing jewelry, other valuables and documents in the autorickshaw.
The driver, Shaikh Aziz, approached the service counter of the booth which located the customer and returned his bag.
“Kathan Pandya, the tourist, was visiting from Vadodara. He took the autorickshaw from Pune railway station to Sinhagad Road. While getting down he forgot his bag in the rickshaw. Driver Aziz saw the bag after some time and called the prepaid booth customer care. We tried calling the customer on the contact number provided by him while booking but, unfortunately, the number was incorrect. CityGlide Auto with their standard operating procedures traced the customer and contacted them,” said Shitole. Driver Aziz then traveled all the way from Kondhwa to Sinhagad Road and returned the bag.
As per Shitole, every month there are around 10 instances of drivers linked to the prepaid service returning luggage and valuables of the customers who leave them behind.
The booths are 100 per cent automated and the commuters have to use the kiosk for booking. A virtual queue is maintained of the autorickshaws using geo-fencing and fares are charges as per the RTO approved meter rates, with photo.
