The Moroccan Airports Authority (ONDA) has announced to passengers of Marrakech Menara airport the establishment of a ticket counter dedicated to pre-ordering and booking taxis via a state-of-the-art computer system.
Upon arrival and after collecting their luggage, passengers wishing to be transported by taxi are guided by appropriate signage to the counter to order a taxi and prepay the fare by card or in cash.
The prices of the trips, jointly determined by local authorities and ONDA, are given in advance and are set depending on the destination.
Payment is made in exchange for a receipt, which the passenger must then scan at one of the dedicated machines. After that, they obtain a ticket indicating the taxi number and their rank in the queue.
This pre-order and pre-payment step can soon be done online on a special website “order.kech.cab” or on one of the interactive machines that will be installed at the airport.
The taxi drivers who will service between the city of Marrakech and the airport are previously registered and listed on an application made available to them by the service provider. They receive a tag to stick on their vehicle and an identification badge authorizing them to provide this service.
Local authorities and the ONDA have selected the Moroccan startup “Casky” for the organization, modernization and automation of the provision of transport by cab from the Marrakech Menara airport.
The system functions non-stop thanks to a multilingual computer interface. It allows the management of pre-orders and the modification of taxi reservation tickets, the management of taxi and customer waiting lines, and the management of the payment of trips and the management of complaints.
This solution comes following reports of a taxi driver scamming a British tourist in Marrakech last December.
The tourist happened to be filming his conversation with the taxi driver, who charged him MAD 350 ($33) for a trip between the airport and Jemaa El Fna Square.
The video went viral on YouTube, leading Marrakech authorities to strip the taxi driver of his license.
Less than a month later, a similar situation happened in Agadir where a driver charged a tourist MAD 150 ($14.66) for a trip he took from the hotel he was staying at to another destination, instead of MAD 70 ($6.84). Agadir authorities also stripped the driver of his license in addition to a financial fine.
