Taxi Driver Online

Sorry Rob but you have SALESMAN tunnel vision. Each form of communications has its advantages and disadvantages.

You said: GPRS Beast PMR on Speed.
So it has a high thruput of data, so how long does it take to dispatch a job to a car from entering the job til the driver reads it on his/her screen? Remember that the connection has to be made and setup.

You said: Performance
The performance of GPRS is only as good as the network coverage and also the amount of free space there is on the network at that particular time. Cell handover can be bad in areas and calls/connections will drop.

You said: Price
Total garbage. A company can buy radios for a few hundred pounds and have a radio system up and running, from their own location and have very small costs.

You said: Range
Why should someone want to be able to send a job to their driver 100s of miles away? The majority of companies operator within a geographical area and 99.99999999999999% of their work is within that area, so no major benift of GPRS from that point of view. Also there are systems that can easily give you greater coverage than 20miles.

GPRS is a good service and the product is fine but DONT try and tell everyone that its the be all and end all for their company and that nothing else is any good.

Backup Systems and Emergencies.
At the end of the day you cant beat having a driver just pickup a mic and shout in if they have an emergency, you CANT do this with GPRS, GSM or whatever sort of mobile phone system, it will take a few more seconds.

Tell people about your system Rod, lets all see it working, find the market place for it BUT like I said DONT attack PMR as it still has a lot of advantages over GPRS and thats FACT!!!!!!!!!

regards
RadioMan

Mr Blooby, I agree with a lot of things you have said and pointed out. But Rob is certainly against PMR and thats what they are trying to sell, a system that does not use radios.

It will not be long before AUriga, Autocab and others have GPRS as standard with their systems, so companies can use both if they requrie.

PMR IS NOT DEAD and it will continue to be used becuse it WORKS and the costs after installation are certainly cheaper than running GPRS.

GPRS is still VERY good for various applications but I just dont like companies who come in and tell everyone that its the only way to go, its NOT.

Rob I know people who have Cordic and love it, I have even told someone else that its certainly good for what they want.

regards
RadioMan

So is there any one out that actually uses Cordic and can say how the system stands up.

In demo form it looks excellent.

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

Hi Mr Tom Thumb

Speak to Vincent at First Travel UK . Tel: (+44) 141 842 7842

regards
RadioMan

Hi Tom Thumb

Talk to Dave at Parker Car Services on 020 8977 1000. They have around 200 cars on Cordic System

Also talk to James at Super cars on 020 88 55 55 22. They have around 100 cars on Cordic System.

I hate to be a bore, but isn't Diplomats gear multi-platform so that you can use whichever option is cheapest and most reliable at the time?

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There is Significant Unmet Demand for my Opinion.

Yes but Andy

If you were going to sleep with a prostitute would you choose the one scratching, dirty, with sores all over her face or would you go for the classy, clean lovely smelling babe stood next to her.

Sorry but Diplomat's history does not stand up to the inspection I would always give a supplier of critical to my company.

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

Yeah, Love it Tom. A lovely analogy.

Trouble is, can't see another supplier with such capable software.

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There is Significant Unmet Demand for my Opinion.

Not posted for a while but all good and Interesting stuff.

The way I see things is that GPRS systems clearly do work. We had a little dabble a couple of years ago but ended up backing away from it. Sure it got the jobs to the cars even if they were at the other end of the country but it was painfully slow compared to what we had been used to. I’m sure that if we had continued development we may have got things going faster but the real killer for us was cost.

We try to keep our heads updated with new information as often as possible and it’s these transmissions that make up the bulk of the airtime. The company we were working in conjunction with seemed not to understand the need for this sort of traffic and constantly reminded us that the extra bandwidth would increase user costs. This may or may not have been the case but it was academic as we took a decision to back away from this kind of technology because, hand on heart we didn’t think it was suitable for every company.

As Radioman quite rightly say’s, the vast majority of taxi companies do 99% of their work well within the range of their existing radio and this is true even when using a local base. We’ve seen one example (with some funny prices for land-line cost and radio licences) so let me give you a real world worked example of a company installed just last week.

I think my sums are right? but doesn’t this cost £135,260 more over the life of the product?

I know as a business the aim is to make money but I would have a problem in recommending such a system even though it’s easier to sell something with all the bells and whistles that’s free. I suppose it’s just down to how I do business. If a company comes along where I feel that GPRS is a better alternative, then I advise them to go that way. Better to give good advice than have an unhappy customer.

Right, that’s my two penneth for what it’s worth!

Bill

These figures are VERY misleading and WRONG. The GPRS figures do not belong to Cordic system. Therefore, it is misleading to post them under “Cordic” heading. If they belong to another system, please post it under new topic.

I don’t know what PMR solution you can get for £482 per vehicle which includes GPS, detachable colour touch screen data head with 500 MHz processor, 128MB memory, voice guided navigator, data compatible radio, aerial, cables, mounting kit and installation!!

On GPRS, you have put “Everything is free”. Only naïve people think that they can something good for free. There is always a catch. You can be sure, someone has paid money for them and they would want to recover the cost of them plus high interest rate over 5 years. Therefore, your yearly GPRS figures include paying for the equipment over 5 years (perhaps with high interest). Therefore, comparing £15,600 with £164 annual charge of PMR is VERY misleading.

I am not surprised for huge amount of misleading information about GPRS based systems. There is panic in PMR camp suppliers. They know very well that PMR will not have a major role in future of Data Despatch System in a very near future. Before you ask me for price comparison, I can guarantee you that the cost of Cordic system including yearly running cost is far lower than any other system like for like. I am sure serious and intelligent people who are looking for data system will do their homework well and don’t rely on this type of misleading information.
By the way, do not compare Reliant Robin with a 4x4 Porsche.

I don't think the poster was having a pop at Cordic, he was just giving his views on the cost of GPRS.

That's the nature of forums, some mush starts up a topic on one issue and soon after a different one is being discussed.

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IDFIMH

Don

I think you have read my post in the wrong frame of mind. I’m not knocking Cordic, not for one moment; their a good company and as I say I even recommend them if I feel that is the best advice for a specific customers needs.

As for my figures being wrong well you’ll have to tell me exactly where you think the problem is and I’ll change them no problem. I used actual costs for my example and as far as I can see my sums are right.

Clearly I’m not comparing like for like in terms of the actual technology, I’m just comparing the costs to the user of two methods possible methods. Neither am I saying that one system is better than another, both have their merits and drawbacks and at the end of the day the customer has to weigh these in making a final decision.

Finally Don, The idea of an open forum is to allow sharing of points of view. I have posted only in response to issues raised on this thread and as such I’m not hijacking it.

Thanks

Bill Green

Well, we have had a quote from Cordic, and no way is it less than PMR or less than any other system. Their price is competitive, but at the end of the day, it is more expensive in year on year costs than PMR/Data/GPS solutions. And that is before mentioning the very real issue that operators with PDAs are talking about, namely the theft/going missingness of PDA units.

It's horses for courses.

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There is Significant Unmet Demand for my Opinion.

Bill, it looks as though you've used the formula £7.50 per week per car - this yields £15.6k per year for 40 cars. I believe some companies now charge around £7.50 per month for airtime.

On the subject of Cordic, do they actually own any patents, or do they just use patented algorithms?

BTW Tom, we don't do anal or S&M

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Next time you wave, use all your fingers.

On the contrary Jason I hear you have shafted lots of people up the arse.

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry