Taxi Driver Online

Yes, because I was paying the operator £15 a week, when I wasn't doing any work for them.

They already take a commission out of each job as well. If the £15 a week, was the actual cost of the PDA then fair enough.

Obviously the operator is there to make money. They should not sneakily add extra on to the weekly PDA charge to the drivers.

What car I run is irrelevant. £15 a week is £15 a week. Look after the pennies and the pounds look after themselves.

Because they're fuckin expensive.

I use my own android phone as my PDA and the data usage is just part of my monthly allowance. So basically it costs me nothing, zilch, not a sausage, bugger all.

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Grandad,

What you pay is what the company you drive for charges you, which is never the same as what we charge the company.
By far the highest part of your overall costs comes from the office staff wages and compared to that, the PDA cost is insignificant.

I can only speak for my own company but if you use your own personal PDA with us, then we add 25p per week to the bill.
Use one of our M2M data sims then that’s another 75p a week.
If you took the full kit with dual sims, it works out at £3 per week for two years and after that it’s back to sim only cost.
There's a fixed cost for the office at £40/week but that's divided by the number of drivers on the fleet.



Bill

We are finally getting somewhere!

I was offered to add the Cordic system on to my own Android phone. The company said they would still charge £15 a week, because they still have to pay Cordic a licence to each Android phone they download it to. Nevertheless, they said I could pay £10 a week instead of £15, because I've been with them for a long time.. (i.e. almost five years..)

What Bill says, means that the cost for the system is only a few pounds per week.

According to those figures, for those five years I've been working for that company, it cost me £3,900 for that weekly PDA charge (£15 x 5 x 52).

It cost the company (£3 x 2 x 52) + (£1 x 3 x 52) + (£40/100 drivers x 5 x 52) = £572

So, over the 5 years, the company have made out of me: £3900 - £572 = £3328

Divide £3228 by 5 to work out per year = £645.60, multiply by that for 100 drivers = £64560 additional profit per year just by charging the drivers £15 a week for their PDA.

is the software for the base computers included in the above somewhere?



if i had 30 cars what would the costs be, in total, per month to run a PDA/android phone sytem (i.e. 30 phones, 30 sims, etc)

£300 a month?

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

I used weekly costs because your example was in weeks so just multiply by 4 for the monthly figure.

We don’t actually make any charges for the software on the PCs or the mobile devices but we do charge for support and that’s fixed at £160 per month irrespective of company size. The PDA costs depends on how you chose to do things but are as stated. That’s essentially it apart from the VAT that we collect for the government.

It’s an unusual business model that doesn't generate high profits but it gives us a stable income that’s not dependent on the peaks and troughs of sales.

Bill

What youve stated amounts to peanuts in reality, i assume the PDA's we use (on Mercury) cost an arm and a leg then?

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

I honestly don't know what a Mercury device costs but the PDA itself is pretty much standard so in all probability, the vast majority of what you're paying for will be the software charges.

What I do know is that they're modified in such a way as to make it impossible for them to be used with any other dispatch software or sold on as a workable PDA.

Bill

When I had 3 LWB vans in use as couriers/sameday the exchange ran a mobile job exchange, I had a PDA. they sent me software to load on it, that cost peanuts, the jobs came through by "push email" (?) that was instead of the exchange using texts at about 3p a time, my PDA, my data time, etc

the subs for that service were £30 a month

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Of all the things ive lost, i miss my mind the most

Chris, Your workings are completely un realistic.

The average cost of a cordic system for 100 drivers would be upwards of £100k, over 5 years on finance would be around £2500 a month, £25 per driver a month, add the vat were up to £30. Adding maintenance, which is probably another 700 to a 1000 a month, Staff costs, advertising, bills, rent. £15 a week is a fair price, alot less than most people pay per week.

lets just all go back to pen and paper when work was much easier. Only real benefit ive noticed with a dispatch system is its quieter in the cab when busy and the ring/txtback

Ok, I'm just going on what's previously said.

So, for the system: £30 x 12 / 52 = £6.92/weekly

Maintenance: £1000 (I'll take the higher figure) x 12 / 52 / 100 drivers = £2.31

£6.92 + £2.31 = £9.23 weekly, per driver

Ok so I know now the cost is more bearable.



The £15 a week is solely for the PDA charge (so they say), as I have (had) to pay this whether or not I do jobs for them.

Operating and running costs of their business should come out their commission they charge per job (between 20% and 30%). [This where Uber makes their money, and they don't charge anything at all for their PDA/smartphone!]

The £15/week shouldn't be seen as a rental/circuit fee (although a very small one) as well.

Uber don't provide any equipment do they? you just download an app I thought.

This debate is absolutely pointless. An operator charges you for access to work. How he structures his pricing is his business.

As an independent driver you have to decide if you want to pay the fees involved to access income or not.

Whether you pay or not is your choice.

What he charges is his.

If you only make yourself available for his work when you have no other source then I think he is totally justified in 'making some' on the PDA hire.

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

Uber provides an iPhone with their despatch software on it. Other similar companies such as Drivr, you download an app. I'm not sure about Wheely or Bounce.

Yes, you're quite right.

I've decided not to pay their fees to access their work any more. I've already handed back their PDA.

Even though I've handed it back, I was still charged £30 for a further two weeks PDA rental until the next billing statement, so my deposit was returned with £30 less than expected.

They're still sending me statements with the £15 weekly charge, and my account with them is now arrears. I believe this is an oversight anyway, but I will not chase for them for it, as I can't be bothered. The controller is still ringing me, asking if I'm available to do any work for them.

I have other sources of income. I will continue with dealing with my own work and clients as usual, and working for other, smaller companies if I'm available, who are more transparent in their pricing and costs.