airport - prepaid taxis

s.seifert

hi!

arriving on an international flight around 2 in the morning, will it be easy to get a prepaid taxi - without waiting too long?

and how much is the taxi fare to sudder street?

thanks for the information!

atala

Kolkata is not a very busy airport, so you should not have a problem to get a prepaid taxi. I hope you do have a reservation at the hotel though, since an early morning arrival at Sudder St is probably not a good idea. Did you ask for an Airport pick-up at your hotel? That would be preferable to a prepaid taxi. Cost around 2-300 Rupees. (no exact amount remembered, I think I paid once RS 170 prepaid. Hotel pick-up a bit higher: But worth it at any price.)

s.seifert

thanks for your inputs, but the hotel i want to stay asks around 2.000 rupies - quite a difference.

atala

wow, some kind of price that, are you going to stay at the Oberoi Grand?

chief61

Prepaid taxi Counter at International Terminal operates
on 24 Hours basis, specially during flight arrival time.
clear you customs , counter is on your left side of
the passage towards exit, its Written " Bengal Taxi
association" prepaid taxi counter. Fare to Sudder street
I guess it will be around 200 rupees.

Cheers

atala

it is normal that foreigners are approached with the most expensive option available. You could ask your hotel again and demand that they send an ordinary non-AC Ambassador car. That is what you get with the prepaid taxi stand. The hotel probably offered a deluxe van option, perhaps a car of their own.

Which hotel is it? Better hotels have a travel desk which is happy to get any kind of business. so if you ask for a lower price, they will probably offer you an ordinary cab for about 4-600 Rupees. I would go for that. At night a pick up is always better than a prepaid.

blackbird

In my experience the prepaid system is fine -- just make sure that the number plate written on the slip is the actual number on the car. The only time I had a problem was when the driver asked for an additional Rs50 for petrol -- this was totally out of order and he knew it. After a healthy argument he worked out a deal with the petrol pump attendant to get me to my destination.

atala

This is not being practised anymore in Delhi where you get just one PC print out, instead of the several carbon prints. you just take whatever taxi lines up at the front of the queue, where a policeman guards the place at a booth, and directs the driver to give your name, number and time of leaving to a person writing it into some book. This increase in security must be a fall-out from the prepaid-taxi-murder that happened a few years ago.(Safe to travel from airport to Noida around midnight?)

In CCU it may still be practised though. However, I doubt that a taxi driver would accept a passenger with a slip which does not carry his car's number... he probably could not get his money from the booth, could he?

blackbird

Yeah, the point about checking is just to make sure that he is a genuine prepaid driver and not someone about to kidnap you. And also so that if he misbehaves, you can report him.

atala

The prepaid queue is entirely and unmistably different from the other taxis parked out there. It is not possible for any other cab to sneak in. There would be an uproar among drivers who lined up for hours waiting.

blackbird

Look, I don't want to encourage anyone to be paranoid.... but there are always ways of subverting systems. For example, the driver could be in league with the person assigning the cars. And information is so often wrong in India I think it's worth checking. It doesn't exactly take a lot of time and effort.