TEHRAN — After rather controversial ride-hailing applications of “snapp” and “tap30”, Tehran Municipality has finally developed another application of the kind called “carpino”.

Carpino, as introduced by paly store, is an application which “connects taxi drivers and passengers allowing them to experience a safe, fast and convenient ride at just a few taps of button” on smart phones.

However, long before the newly created application, snapp and tap30 have had attracted lots of passengers as they could simply find the nearest driver by selecting their location and destination on the map and commute easily and safely 24- 7.

Paying by cash or credit cards, round trips, monitoring the trip route live, offering various discounts and offers, being notified about the drivers’ information and the taxis’ plate number prior to the trip and sharing it with others, and finally rating the drivers after the trips are of the benefits of such apps.

The apps are currently available in provinces of Tehran and Alborz.

While the aforesaid apps proved to be convenient and were welcomed by the users they were believed to lack the necessary permits they were required to obtain from Tehran Municipality which is in charge of transportation.

Additionally the cheap prices and discounts offered by the applications have to some extent distorted the market for the transportation fleet affiliated with the municipality.

Despite all unconfirmed and false rumors going around the two applications the police announced that nary a complaint had been lodged against the drivers and the two apps kept on operating smoothly.

Finally, the municipality caved in to the pressure and developed a ride-hailing application of its own dubbed “carpino” which is available for downloading since the beginning of the current Iranian calendar year (March 21).

The app is now offering services with 2,500 trained drivers and have succeeded in delivering some 2,600 rides during Noruz holidays (March 21 to April l2), ISNA news agency quoted deputy mayor for traffic and transport affairs Maziar Hosseini as saying.

Acquiring necessary permits from responsible bodies the app is the first to operate officially in the capital and currently some 12,500 drivers are waiting in the list to receive proper training to start their job as a driver, Hosseini explained.

In addition to the training courses all the drivers are obligated to obtain documents ensuring their mental and physical health, he added.

The application is totally safe, he said, adding, all drivers are very well-informed about the ways and they are able to enter traffic zones without facing any restrictions.

MQ/MG