Evaluating Safety Issues for Taxi Transport Management

Abstract

Taxi drivers face many problems every day including safety issues. The tendency to quickly transport passengers to their destinations for more income has resulted in dangerous driving behaviors leading to traffic violations. So, taxi drivers need appropriate support and training programs to improve safety and reduce the risk of crashes. Implementing different support and safety training programs requires an effective management system. There is a dearth of research on the safety issues of taxis from the perspective of taxi organization managers. This study aims to evaluate the safety issues of taxi transport management through a case study of the Tehran Taxi Organization. A questionnaire survey was conducted with 22 regional managers and 20 transportation specialists of the Tehran Taxi Organization. Issues related to taxi drivers, roads and road users, vehicles, and management systems were evaluated in the questionnaire. Participants determined the relevance level and priority ranking of each question. The level of agreement was then tested using the Kendall concordance test. According to the results, the use of GPS was selected as the best in-vehicle monitoring system that can be used to evaluate drivers in the fleet. Participants believed that passengers’ loading and unloading had the most risk for taxi users. The start-inhibit technology to detect open doors was unanimously evaluated as an efficient technology for taxi safety. With respect to educating taxi users, starting education in schools had the most relevance and priority. Recommendations for increasing the safety of taxis include the use of GPS in taxis to monitor and evaluate drivers, receiving crash reports from police and submitting monthly safety assessment reports, flexibility in drivers’ working hours’ schedule, providing training on drivers fatigue management, and evaluating drivers’ health.