The Starnberg taxi column is finally working: Why it is so important to drivers

It was a difficult birth: From the end of the week, the taxi call box at the See train station should finally work as expected.

The equipment is important to the drivers - also because it ensures fairness.

Starnberg - It was typical of the tough history of the Starnberg taxi call column: When it finally stood, it rang too softly. By the end of this week, the drivers waiting for passengers at the See train station should hear the signal even with the windows closed. "A telecom technician sends us a module that he says is easy to install," reports Manfred Weid. The taxi entrepreneur committed to a replacement for the old column that was out of order for years. Just like his colleague Barakat Chekh Nabo, Vice Mayor Angelika Kammerl - and Franz Xaver Hirschbold from Leutstetten. The dialysis patient, who has to rely on a taxi several times a week, had approached the city with the subject.

Why was the pillar so important to taxi drivers in times when phone booths were largely extinct?

In working order, she made sure that all drivers came to her business at the busy See train station.

According to Chekh Nabo, the number of the column (0 81 51) 1 23 13 is very well known in Starnberg, it has been hanging on notice boards in hospitals, medical practices, hotels and authorities for many years.

“A lot of people have this number stored in their heads or on their cell phones,” says Chekh Nabo.

He also thinks of older passengers who need a taxi but cannot simply ask their smartphone for one of the many numbers.

The taxi pillar: an old, but simple and fair system

The principle: The call column rings, the first taxi driver in line picks up the call and drives off, then the next one moves up one place in the queue.

A simple and fair system.

Obtaining the device for around 4500 euros was anything but easy.

Vice Mayor Kammerl can tell you a thing or two about that.

“It was really a difficult birth.

I didn't imagine it to be that complicated, ”she says.

Kammerl had researched the Internet for a long time last year in order to even find a manufacturer, but she had got no further in the town hall and district office.

The delivery came in December, but for the time being the column was lying around in the yard for a few more months.

A spokesman for Bayernwerke, who still had to connect the device to the electricity, named the problem: "Our partner companies currently have little capacity."

But even with juice, the part did not work as expected. Not only because of the volume, also a button was not programmed correctly. The column rang softly a few times and then fell silent again. Too short for the taxi drivers, who often have to get out of their vehicles first. “And at the train station it's loud and there is a lot of traffic,” says Manfred Weid. But he fixed the problem on Monday, instructed by the telecommunications technician over the phone. "Now the doorbell rings longer and you can take the call at the push of a button," he explains. When the pillar is even louder, the badly pandemic-stricken taxi drivers finally have another reason to be happy.