Female passengers, disabled passengers the focus of new Casino Taxi driver training

The largest taxi company in Atlantic Canada, Casino Taxi, is looking to improve its service, starting with a series of training videos for drivers.

“Taxi drivers see everything — they see all walks of life, they see all varying states of consciousness and what not,” said Casino Taxi president of operations Brian Herman.

“There’s a massive position of trust a taxi driver is put in. We want to make sure that they take that responsibility seriously.”

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READ MORE: Halifax to look at making cabs safer after 5 reported sexual assaults

One topic they plan to address with drivers is a timely one — interacting with female passengers.

Halifax Regional Police say so far this year there have been five cases where women in Halifax were allegedly sexually assaulted while in cabs.

“There have been some unfortunate incidents in the last couple of months,” said Herman.

“From our perspective, we thought it was an excellent opportunity to include that into the video and explain to drivers what it may be like to be a single female in a vehicle with a stranger.”

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READ MORE: ‘We’re deeply concerned’: Halifax taxi industry on sexual assaults

Herman says the videos won’t just be for new workers, but all 400 of their drivers.

Another issue they hope to tackle is how to better service customers with special needs.

“That’s an area that we heard from the disability community that needed to be improved upon in the taxi industry,” said Herman. “So we decided to have a video created that is going to tell things from the clients perspective.”

Johanna Stork works with CNIB as an orientation and mobility specialist, and says most drivers provide good service, but CNIB does hear of cases where drivers refuse to drive people with guide dogs.

She’s says she’s happy to hear drivers will be getting additional training.

“I think with every industry that delivers service to the public, I think it’s a great idea to offer training for all kinds of groups that are out there. So, learning how to serve people with disabilities,” Stork said.

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Casino says the city does offer some training for taxi drivers, but it’s not as in-depth as the videos will be.

The taxi company says it’s the first in the region to offer this type of additional training for drivers, which is expected to be in place by the end of the year.