Taxi Driver Online

Has anyone been, and was it worth it.

Alex

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ʎɐqǝ uo pɹɐoqʎǝʞ ɐ ʎnq ı ǝɯıʇ ʇsɐן ǝɥʇ sı sıɥʇ

Simply the best taxi forum in the whole wide world. www.taxi-driver.co.uk

its the biggest and best ever!

Since the last one.

they are all bigger and better.
thats what they said after the last one I found it absolute crap, so I have not bothered this year.

usually there is a flurry of e-mails prior to the show this year not a mention.

so was there placards around the pergeot cab master stand? guess not all hot air!

Geoff

I didn't go, so it was obviously a non-event.

Made Stewarts year.

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IDFIMH

I went and wandered round both days

Certainly more space making it more comfortable.

There seemed to be little interest in the vehicle displays.

Auriga was showing off its latest system so there stand was generally busy. Autocab as well. Diplomat didn't seem quite as busy as those.

Can't say there was one single thing there that was 'new'.

People on stands were saying it was quiet, certainly fewer of the oiikks who normally wander around. My guess is that most of those went to Donnington as usual.

The show is stagnant and needs to find ways of regenerating itself. Does anyone remember when they ran some forums at Sandown one year. They subsided into chaos but at least they stirred things up.

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

I am sat here thinking " what did he do for 2 days if there is nothing new"?

but certainly the market conditions are not right to have a spend.

It was stale last year, and yes it does need brightening up, but that wont be done by a self opiniated bunch of amauter journalists from a rag, the best part of which is the advertising.

it needs passing over to profesionals, but even then if there is nothing new?

at least last year there was a new vehicle launch

I ask again did the placards come out at the cab direct stand or was it hot air?

I think they're a good idea, even if they inform just a few.

If the show just wants to concentrate on potential buyers (of anything), then that may seem OK, but then you will only get a couple of hundred to the show.

It needs to focus on those that aren't in the market at the mo, but maybe in a year or so's time.

I actually spent very little time on the stands. What I do get up to is catching up with pals from around the country, learning from them about different things.

Oh and Tuesday night I drank excessive amounts of Auriga's beer, which meant driving home before early afternoon probably wasn't advisable.

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

Tom what did Auriga have that was new please?

No matter what it was, I bet it costs the earth.

I mean after Tom drank all their profits.

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IDFIMH

Auriga went public with their Evocab system, which is a windows based system running on Oracle databases, whatever that means.

A lot of new gadgets on it, but clearly development has some way to go.

What did make me shake my head was their latest bit of kit, a credit card reader and printer all in one. 230 quid is the going rate and guess what?

It isn't pin and chip compatable! Who exactly is thinking out their product development.

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

Hi Tom Thumb

I also notied that a lot of the data supply companies have basically ignored the "Chip and PIN" which have already started to be issued. Autocabs new dataunit has the old card reader style which was a bad design.

The only way forward is to have a data unit with a seperate keypad with pin reader/swip card as well, this will then attach to the data unit via something like a curly cord or back to an interface box, after all with Chip and Pin the customer needs to put his/her pin into the box and I am sure a lot of them will not allow the drivers to do it and if your data unit is fitted to the front of the vehicle then its bad news if the passengers are all in the back.

Did anyone see the new data unit on the Raywood stand? It was slim and had full colour as well as being touch screen. Has meter, gps, streets maps (something like tom tom already built in) and other bits as well.

Lots of PDAs for sale with various software options, not bad if you only have a few cars on a fleet but not economical for large fleets.

I thought the new venue for the show was better as stated by someone else it did not seem as crowded due to the amount of space.

I did notice that Autocab hired some really nice young ladies to hand out their stuff but Auriga must have phoned up too late and got the agencies office staff/cleaners or something

Also visited the man that was selling the cabshields, very exspensive bits of plastic and I think that a lot of passengers might not like them at all and take offence at them.

Apart from that it, the show was not too bad. The idea of forums would be good, but maybe a boxing ring and thru in some London hacks with minicab touts for the evenings entertainment.

Radioman

Tom,
isnt oracle those tv newspages style?
they will have teething troubles being new to the windows format,
they are new kids on the block.