A Worcester taxi driver, Collin Jansen, won the award as the top taxi driver in the Boland.
At a ceremony where Western Cape Minister of Mobility Daylin Mitchells awarded the province’s top taxi drivers in the Taxi Blue Dot project, the platinum award winners were also from Worcester, making it the home town of the top drivers.
“This year it is 22 years since I first started driving taxis,” Jansen told Standard in an interview.
It all began when he assisted a friend who owned a minibus taxi for three months. Afterwards he asked his father to assist him financially in acquiring his own taxi.
Regarding the award, Jansen says: “It involves real motivation to operate within the rules.”
He added that the behaviour of taxi drivers has improved a great deal since the introduction of the Blue Dot project.
“Every day we start with five stars, and one loses a star with every infringement, which costs money,” Jansen explained. “So ensuring I stay within the rules warrants an incentive at the end of the month for the driver.”
He says he is looking forward to more awards in the future, and hopes his fellow drivers are motivated to also receive recognition.
Just over a year ago the Western Cape Government partnered with the provincial minibus taxi industry to roll out the groundbreaking Blue Dot taxi pilot project.
This is an incentive programme rewarding improved driving behaviour and good passenger service quality in a strong, positive effort to turn around instances of illegal operations and conflict.
The Western Cape cabinet endorsed the pilot project in September 2020, which saw the participation of about 800 minibus taxis across the various regions of the Western Cape.
The project responded to the urgent need to improve public transport in the Western Cape and driver behaviour among taxis, considering the major challenges experienced by the passenger rail system, increasing congestion and other challenges affecting transport in the province.
The minibus taxi industry plays a critical role in the economy of the Western Cape and the lives of citizens, transporting two million passengers daily and accounting for 75% of all public-transport trips.
For the first time in South Africa, through the Blue Dot pilot project, minibus taxi passengers and other road users have been empowered to rate the quality of the service via cellphone. More than 27 000 ratings have been received to date, and on a scale of very good to very bad, passengers rate Blue Dot as good.
The awards were calculated based on two key aspects of the Blue Dot programme: driving behaviour and user feedback. Drivers were scored based on how well they drove and how highly their users rated them. Based on these combined scores drivers were then sorted into five categories of awards.
The driver with the best score per region was awarded the Top Driver award, and the remaining drivers were then sorted into the categories of platinum, gold, silver and bronze, based on their score.
