TRAINING TRAINING TAXI
TRAINING TRAINING TAXI DRIVING IS ALL IN THE MIND were not only scattered across various geographies, they were also specialists. The Taxistars consortium consisted of a complementary mix of professional and institutional partners whose common denominators lay in the professional training and further education in the traffic and/or IT sector, all of whom also had indepth experience in developing EU projects. The tutorial can be accessed online on any computer or laptop. An app version was also developed, which can be downloaded free of charge for both iPhones and Android smartphones. Initial test runs showed high acceptance among prospective taxi drivers. “It lets me choose when and where to use the learning software”, said a Hamburg taxi newcomer. “If I was to rate this programme, I would give it five stars out of five.” So there really are stars elsewhere than in the sky. jh Thymios Lymperopoulos GREEK TAXI ASSOCIATION JOINS THE IRU Various European taxi associations have developed a joint taxi eLearning programme. It is modularly structured and can be accessed online or via app free of charge. Who says that there are stars only in the sky?” This is the slogan used in the launch of a project three years ago under the leadership of the Greek consulting firm Militos for developing a standardised training concept for taxi drivers. The European Union covered 75 per cent of the project costs; the rest was financed by the partners. The goal was to help make the transport system throughout the EU safer, more efficient, more competitive, and to increase its quality by improving training and further education in the taxi sector and, in doing so, to address the ever-changing demands and working conditions inherent in the 24-hour job of ‘taxi driver’. The new star in the taxi world is a friendly, smiling comic strip character who wears a blue and white checked shirt, a blue tie and blue trousers with a smart black belt. His eyes are watchful and his hair is neatly parted on the side. His proportions are deliberately off, leaving him with a head twice as big as his thin legs, and his hands lack fingers, as if to indicate that the job of today’s taxi driver consists of much more than knowing how to use the pedals and steering wheel correctly. Professional taxi driving is all in the mind; it is a matter of knowledge. In-depth knowledge lead to the required professionalism. So it is not surprising that the learning content, presented by our comic strip character in eight different modules, covers a broad range of topics. In addition to standard subjects for profes- sional drivers such as an ergonomic sitting position, stress management and defensive driving, the content also includes passenger-specific subjects such as conflict management, serviceminded behaviour and dealing with disabled passengers. The modular structure allows the learning content to be approached in manageable sections. MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTIONS The information is presented in a fun, easy format. There are no long-winded explanations; the information is brief and concise with a lot of multiple choice questions which engage the learner proactively. There is of course a lot of general information and some content that, at first glance, does not appear to apply exclusively to professional drivers (for example, how caffeine influences concentration), but due to the global nature of the project, everyone involved understood from the beginning that national specificities and regulations could not be taken into account. Instead, the focus is on the development of a modern communication basis. The nine project partners from eight countries HOW TO ACCESS THE TAXISTARS TUTORIAL: … also available as App. For the presentation of the Taxistars project, the consortium invited everyone to Athens, where representatives presented the background of the project to the individual project partners and were available afterwards for a Q&A session. In the afternoon, speakers from the U.S. and the Netherlands presented similar eLearning projects for training taxi drivers in their respective countries. During his welcome speech, Thymios Lymperopoulos, president of the Greek Taxi Association, announced that his association would soon join the IRU taxi section. Hopefully this will provide support in the fight against Uber. The information is presented in an easy format … COMPUTER/LAPTOP: www.taxistars.eu, click on the eLearning platform button, then set the language preferences. SMARTPHONE/TABLET: Search for TaxiTraining in the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store, download the ‘Taxistars’ app from Militos Consulting S.A. in the language of your choice. Data volume: approx. 120 MB; ON PAPER: The learning content will be available as a PDF file (approx. 130 pages) starting at the end of October. PHOTOS + ILLUSTRATIONS: Militos, Wim Faber 8 TAXI OCTOBER / 2015 9
