Taxi driving skills and Best Practices

Malaysia is one the country that are rapidly develop in various aspects of achievement. It has many attractions in terms of stable economy, variety of culturals from different races and high grace human resources. These make Malaysia is one of the most visited place by worldwide tourists. In order to maintain the sustainability of these factors, the public transportation sectors must be up to standard especially the taxi sector. When the taxi driver posses a good reputation the tourists, it actually reflects the quality of local policies and programmes towards taxi drivers. A number of factors can affect the quality of taxi service and its ability to serve various types of trips. There are some performance indicators that can be used to evaluate taxi service. First is the Availability which means the Number of taxis per capita, or per non-driver in an area. It is also including the availability of taxis that accommodate people with special needs, such as wheelchair users. Besides, we need to consider the smoothness of ordering taxi services. Other important factor is the reliability in view of average dispatch time, and maximum delays.furthermore, price for an average trip relative to users income should be considered too which is availability of subsidies and discounts for people with special needs (such as disabilities) and other frequent users.As a passenger, vehicle comfort and cleanliness should not be neglected. Taxi Improvements are usually implemented in cooperation between local governments, which regulate taxi service, and private companies, which provide taxi service. It sometimes involves transit agencies and other organizations that contract for transportation services. Taxi improvements may result from changes in taxi regulations, additional funding for subsidized taxi services, and improvements by taxi companies. Regulatory Reforms may be needed to eliminate unnecessary regulations and costs to taxi service.

Taxi drivers are exposed to a number of risk factors for lower back pain as they are expose to prolonged sitting posture due to seat design and extension of working hours. They are also exposed to whole-body vibration and other manual handling activities like helping passengers with items of baggage and assisting wheelchair users. This kind of exposure in the end could

give rise to few health problems in term of muscular and nervous system such as Pelvic Inflammatory disease. As a result their working qualities will be affected and poor services will be provided to the passengers. Therefore, local authorities should sit together and discuss about the need of providing regular medical check up and frequend health programmes to the taxi drivers. There must be also a proper guidelines to the taxi drivers on manual handling training. This should cover risk factors so that drivers can carry out suitable individual risk assessments and take appropriate measures to manage the risks.

A number of changes are suggested to made in order to address safety concerns raised by drivers and passengers. These include a mandatory emergency duress alarms in taxis with hefty fines for operators found not to have an operational alarm. It is also important to have regulations which requiring taxis to have GPS tracking, safety monitoring and emergency response capability. Best practice guidelines for the establishment and operation of safe taxi ranks, including supervision and CCTV, and management of rank space Changes in regulation to allow better, safer and more accessible vehicles to be used as taxis, including purpose-built vehicles with safety features such as a separate driver compartment. Driver protection screens remaining in place for at least three years. Taxis must use child restraints.