Tokyo is leading the way with a more personalised App to call for your next taxi, using state of the art features this app is sure to please.

The next time you’re in a long lineup waiting for a taxi in Tokyo, you might want to download a new application onto your mobile phone that will connect you with a nearby cab that can pick you up in a few minutes.

Is this the Japanese version of Uber — the hugely popular car-service app in the U.S. that has also spread rapidly to nearly 70 cities around the globe, including New York, London and Singapore? Perhaps not, but it seems like a step in the right direction.

On Tuesday, the Tokyo Hire-Taxi Association introduced a mobile app service that allows users to connect with around 6,500 cabs in central areas of the city. The app works on iPhones and devices using Android and Windows operating systems through Microsoft’s cloud computing system.

By April, the service is expected to work for about 9,200 taxis. There won’t be any extra charges to use the app, and payments will need to be made to the driver. (With Uber, the fare is automatically charged to your credit card.)

Japan has an incredible number of taxis — over 50,000 in Tokyo alone, nearly four times the number in New York. So getting a cab in the big city is usually fairly easy.

But not always. In the upscale shopping district of Ginza, for instance, there are long lines of waiting taxis everywhere, but you can end up walking in circles looking for the start of the line, the proper place to get a cab.

And despite being one of the most wired cities on the planet, mobile phone apps for calling cabs aren’t widely used.
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