Many taxi drivers in the country require regular road familiarisation lessons from transport experts and officials, feel commuters.

This is because a large number of cabbies, especially the relatively new ones, have poor knowledge of roads both within and outside Doha and this causes much inconvenience to passengers, according to residents who regularly use taxis.

While acknowledging that taxi availability has improved significantly, particularly with the arrival of new players in the market, commuters say the same cannot be said about the quality of drivers - particularly in terms of their knowledge of roads.

Referring to an incident involving an acquaintance, a veteran professional involved in developing traffic-related solutions stressed the need for imparting quality and road familiarisation lessons to drivers at regular intervals.

Recently, a woman boarded a taxi from Mansoura to go to a place near Al Khafji Street in the West Bay area. However, even after almost two hours, the cabbie - working for one of the Karwa franchisees - could not find the destination though the vehicle apparently had a GPS tracking facility.

The battery of the passenger's mobile had died and she was unable to talk to her friend who was waiting for her. The driver's mobile connection, meanwhile, did not have sufficient balance to make a call.

Eventually, the passenger had to pay a steep QR120 for a ride and she was dropped back at the place from where she was picked up.

Many other passengers have had such experiences with taxi drivers, and this called for urgent steps to make drivers aware of different roads, diversions and alternative routes, they said.

In particular, finding an embassy in West Bay can leave one exasperated as cabbies often do not know where exactly to go despite visiting the area more than once, it is learnt.

Though one of the taxi franchisees had reportedly given a "flag chart" to its drivers for easy identification of embassies in the diplomatic area, the feedback from customers was that even with such assistance tools, they faced difficulties in reaching their destination and ended up paying more than the usual fare.

Often, the "victims" of drivers' lack of street knowledge are newcomers to the country, say residents.

A source recounted that recently, one such customer hailed a cab at the airport and asked the driver to take him to a place in Al Hilal where a new hypermarket had opened sometime ago. However, the driver took him to Airport Road, along Najma, where the same retail chain has another store.