SMS 51969 in the following format WB taxi HWH R <taxi no> <road name>

SMS 51969 in the following format WB taxi HWH R

Police put up a poster for citizen information.

I noticed a very nice hoarding by the police department in a bus shelter on the highway NH2, this was during my recent visit to Kolkata, Samabay Pally to be very particular.

Independent of the "punishable offence under the section ...." the degree of punishment was quite intimidating and I hope this would deter a possible culprit before they harmed a possible victim.

As a footnote there was a mention of what one could do if a Taxi refused fare. I was particularly attracted to this information because the previous two days every time I spotted a free taxi and approached it to hire it ... there was a "nice refusal" approach adopted. The common theme was.

Me: "Can to come to Samabay Pally?" (in Hindi|Bangla mix)
Cab driver: " I will come, but to the place that you want to go, at this hour, I will not get a fare back"
Me: "I will pay you a little more than the meter" (cajoling | bribing?)
Cab Driver: "Can you give me INR xyz instead". (xyz > 2.5* fare)

If I had see this advertisement by the police earlier, would I have SMSed? I asked myself.

Was he refusing?

Probably yes.

Would I send an SMS?

Probably Yes

Was it easy to send the SMS in the format (SMS 51969 in the following format WB taxi HWH R )

Probably Yes

Is it easy to send the SMS in this format when you are desperately looking for a cab?

Probably Not

Do nothing.

Probably Not

Do nothing

Probably Not

Do nothing

Probably Not.

Do nothing

Looks like which ever way I think I do not think I would have sent the SMS. Probably because it is not easy to send an SMS given the scenario or the context. So what would have been better?

May be, an mobile application, which allowed me to take a picture of the cab and submit the information. The mobile application could automatically identify the number using OCR (see Mobile Phone Based Vehicle License Plate Recognition for Road Policing) and geo tag the picture using GPS. Given that most taxi using folks (sorry to use this phrase) would own a data plan + a smart device this is not a problem. Complaint lodged. Simplified. Probably action taken.

SMS in the current scenario and that too in a specific format; is a NO NO.

See:Natural language mobile interface to register citizen complaints (2008)

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