MUSSD to set up verification centre of taxi meters

Sri Lanka’s growing public taxi system will soon find its fare rates closely monitored with the Measurement Units Standards and Services Department (MUSSD) gearing up to establish a verification centre of taxi meters.

The MUSSD, the apex national institution in charge of national measurement standards across a wide spectrum of activities, has proposed the project to facilitate a reliable travel fare counting system of taxi meters of which verifying accuracy of the device would be mandatory. 

“Today, people have become highly dependent on various three wheelers and taxi services but often the passengers are cheated and they pay higher than usual rates,” said Minister of Industry and Commerce Rishad Bathiudeen while justifying the need of such a system in Sri Lanka.

The proposed centre would consist of all the facilities required to verify and grant approval of the meters which are mounted in taxis. However, the installation of necessary measuring instruments for the centre is yet to be sought.
Plans are also afoot to appoint a team that would consist of a technical officer and a supporting officer to assume duties on taxi meter verification and inspection that would cover all the districts.
It was shared that the MUSSD is already seeking design approvals from manufactures and importers under the French OMIL. .

While the existing meter designs are expected to gain approval before the end of this year, it was said that the process of approving designs of imported meters kick off by mid2017. 
Taxi meters are noted to be fitted in more than one million taxis (three wheelers and four wheelers). As of 2014, more than 929,000 three wheelers were observed to be active in the public transport system.