Warning Over Taxi App
August 4th, 2011 | by Mobile Data Group |A NSW government-funded iPhone app is revolutionising taxi bookings by allowing people to track booked cabs on a real-time GPS map, but the NSW Taxi Council says the unauthorised app could put passengers’ safety at risk.
The iPhone app goCatch lets commuters find nearby taxis in real time on a Google Map on their iPhone and have cabs pick them up, effectively acting as a booking service.
But the NSW Taxi Council has warned passengers against using the free app and others like it, saying that anyone can sign up as a driver.
It warned that passengers could be “taken advantage of” late at night by predators using the app who are not authorised taxi drivers.
The department said it was following the matter up with goCatch’s developers and would be concerned if passengers were “being charged more than the authorised fare” but did not respond to whether the app was putting taxi drivers and passengers at risk.