Istanbul: How to improve taxi driver license inspection?

Local context

In Istanbul, Taxi drivers must have a “Public Transport Vehicle Usage Certificate” issued by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality (IBB) in order to operate a taxi in the city.

However, IBB has received numerous complaints of unregulated taxis circulating in the city. The issue is also linked to security as it endangers taxi drivers, passengers and, ultimately, traffic safety. Ensuring the enforcement of the system will increase the safety of passengers of both citizens and tourists. IBB is looking for technological solutions to prevent such violations of the system and for implementation for new / improved systems for the taxi driver license enforcement.

Solution objectives

The solution should meet at least one of the following objectives:

• To develop technological solutions to prevent violations of the taxi license system.
• Increase the number of licensed taxi drivers
• To monitor continuously taxi driver licensing
• To reduce the usage of private cars

Solution impact

The solution should target at least one of the following impacts:

• Healthy and reliable operation
• Increase in passenger satisfaction
• Increase passenger safety
• Development of solutions for unlicensed taxis with technologies including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine learning (ML) when integrated with smartphones (apps).
• Preference for software-based (app.based) approaches that can easily be implemented on smartphones and offer massive scalability at low cost.