Free wi-fi for taxi commuters

Pretoria taxi commuters will now be able to access free WiFi in taxis. This is one of the SA National Taxi Council’s (Santaco) way of attracting commuters back to using public transport and government addressing the human right issue of access to reliable, cost-effective broad band for the South African population.

The project will see 1 500 taxis and 50 taxi ranks providing free internet access to its commuters. With the growing use of internet and the culture of free WiFi, which people love accessing, Santaco saw an opportunity to boost the taxi business.

Last week 20 taxis where released in Central Pretoria that travel from Pretoria to Johannesburg and another ten will be released this week in which they will be travelling from Mamelodi to Johannesburg. Commuters will be granted 50 MB free every month, once they connected their device with the taxi’s WiFi network they can connect from any taxi or rank.

Once they have reached they monthly limit they will be given an option to buy. Santaco said the installation would be done within three years, currently they are rolling out the project in phases in all the different ranks around Gauteng. Commuters, especially young people, feel this would make life easy for them because they spend a lot of time on their phones and this would help with school research and keeping in touch on social networks.

The taxis would be easy to spot as they will be marked on top with ‘Wi-Taxi’ sticker. This initiative is part of Santaco’s long-term vision of the TR3 2020 vision aimed at modernising, Revitalisation, transforming and developing the taxi industry into a world class taxi service.

The project was launched by the minister of transport, Dipuo Peters, in Soweto on 12 June, Vilakazi Street.