Taxi Driver Online

I have been a taxi driver for the past 5 years and have had my own taxi website for the past 9 months which i mainly take airport bookings from.
I am looking to expand and get my own fully functioning taxi office but need some advice.
1. What is the best booking and despatch system on the market?
2. I have been looking at a GPS system using the ox pda systems, does anybody know the good and bad points of this system?
3. How much does the ox pda systems cost to set up and run?
4. What is the minimum number of drivers you need to use the pad system to make it worthwhile?
Any other information you can give me would be of great help.
Thanks.

Most of the data people aren't that much interested in small companies, which is a bit stupid, but there you are.

This thread a while back may point you in the right direction.

http://www.taxi-driver.co.uk/phpBB2/vie ... php?t=1813

If memory serves me right I think they are also doing this in Lincoln.

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IDFIMH

if you have about 140 cars then auriga will take £170,000 for new computer and office set up.
and £182,000 for new dataheads.

1,300 quid for a unit that hasn't been shown to work.

That is a big lump.

Still 2,500 for a total system that will last you 6 to 8 years. Less than £10 per week. A worthwhile investment.

Then you have to consider the maintenance agreement! Probably £10 a month per car.

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

£2,500??? I'd recommend spending £2.50 for a good notebook and a pencil!

If your starting up an office with just a few drivers?? then you should be able to do that the way it's been done by everyone else in the past. If things don't work out as planned then you don't end up with a long-term financial burden. If as you say, most of your work tends to be long distance then use the drivers mobile, the phone bill wont be that much if your not doing high volume work.

Seems to me that you’re putting the cart a bit before the horse. Get your business working first, then look to see if technology can help.

Good luck

Bill

by all accounts the first lot are going in next week.
hands up whos heard that before.

Then I guess you will be the first company in UK to have them commercially.

Last week they were still running beta tests with two smaller companies sorting out the bugs.

Oh and how much will the sim card cost you per month?

What speed will they communicate at over PMR?

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

i think ive confused you.
we arent getting them for a while.
but the rep keeps telling the firms boss that they will be going live somewhere next week.
they said that a few months ago.

I see. They have been saying that since I went to a roadshow last year.

I can't believe you guys have agreed to such a substantial investment in a product yet to be seen to work.

Draft the letter know so it is ready to send.

That is the letter telling Auriga to take the Evocab crap out of your office unless they sort it in 48 hours. Apparently that is the only way to make sure they fix the bugs.

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

Can I first say that I'm not a fan of data, and even less a one of data salesmen?

With that in mind it doesn't surprise me one jot that the earth has been promised and wont arrive for many moons to come.

I simply can't believe how stupid/gullible some very good businessman can be when they are sold the dream by the likes of Auriga.

Why can't the operators just be honest and say we are buying it because we are being told it will gain us more work, and if our competitors buy it, then we will lose loads.

In other words they are being frightened into buying it, by data firms that couldn't give a f***.

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IDFIMH

Why does that matter?

The firm can be found on this link. http://wwswitchboard.com/taxi%2Dcall/

Flyer

Because with 140 car fleet and gps that is an awful lot of data travelling over the airwaves. That means a very busy frequency causing job transmissions to fail or the driver sat waiting for the job to come though not knowing which way to turn.

Radioman will explain the techno stuff but you need a high baud rate.

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

Hi
The simple way too explain it is that on a radio channel, just like a road, it can only handle so much traffic. The way that a lot of companies get over this is to install more datachannels.

Some of the GPS dispatch systems in the UK send back the cars location every "XX" amount of seconds depending on a number of factors i.e. free, busy etc, but the problem is that only so much can be sent.

If you increase the speed of data on the radio channel then the amount of data that can be passed will be increased but there are limitations to this as well, i.e. the faster the data the less distance you will get (Yep thats right, high speed data comes at a cost).

With the current data radio channels the most that anyone can hope to get out of it is 4800 bauds.

But even with a standard data system companies can make big improvements and make their systems more responsive etc if they actually look after them:

1. Decent radio site
2. Decent radio site antenna system
3. Decent cable for the antenna system (very important indeed).
4. In car installations to be installed correctly i.e. iaw specifications.
5. Decent car antenna
6. Operator training in office and car.

Its amazing that companies spend 100s of thousands of pounds on systems but will not spend the money on the radio site or even decent vehciles installations.

Bad installations cost YOU money. Bust magmoungs COST you money.

regards
RadioMan

I'll go along with everything Radioman has to say there with a few of my own observations.

The qty of cars on a circuit isn't the limiting factor, its how busy the company is at peak times that determains the limiting factor. I've seen hackney based companies with a couple of hundred cars that put less stain on a radio channel than a small but busy private hire setup.

People do worry about if a system can cope but in reality few ever get to the point where capacity is exceeded. Our rule of thum says that about 200 working cars (without GPS) on a busy circuit is about the absolute maximum you can expect a single channel to support. You could get more on at higher Baud rates but the number of companies that reach this stage are few and far between.

In our experiance, good antennas on the vehicle are the key to good data performance and yet we still have an uphill job convincing drivers that changing their rusty old magmout with broken coax will bring them more work. Ah well no change there!

Bill