Taxi Driver Online

Tom I understand that you moved from Auriga ( the Sirius older system) to Cordic. However, It is very difficult for someone that has invested in PMR infrastructure (base stations, etc.) to not consider the PMR as a viable communication channel oportunity when moves to data (this was your case, right?). And Auriga is offering exactly this cheaper (from the operational point of view) alternative of data communication. Moreover with CT4000 you have the opportunities to simultaneously use PMR and GPRS where is the case. Moreover they claim that it is possible to install their system to work with PDAs if someone prefer this alternative.

Cordic is offering GPRS only alternative. I do not know which are the operational costs in this case. Cordic claims in the cpaq document, downloadable from their site) that on average, for a job the operational cost is very low, about 1p to be paid to the mobile operator. I guess this is on top of SIMs cost subscriptions and voice calls cost and refers only to cost of data exchanged via GPRS.

Moreover, the facts that Cordic is using a more standardised solution from the hardware/software point of view might be good, however Auriga claims that their mobile units are more appropriatelly designed for the taxi cars and if you really want pdas they can specially install the system to work with pdas.

Another issue of debate here on the forum is the overall cost of installation. Most of you consider Auriga very expensive. It is my opnini too. However it seems that Cordic is offering their system for about the same price. In this case only the operational costs should decide.

Please could you guys refer from your experience to all these issues? Thanks,
taxitech

Taxitech

Let me explain this from my perspective.

I was paying 10K a year to run a remote radio site (an absolute cracker). I was also running 40 company mobiles on contract with o2 because my cars still spent a large percentage of their time out of radio range (we do lots of airport transfers).

I had 30 CT3000's installed with tait radios, the other 15 cars didn't have ct3000 but purely did exec work via phones.

We went over to Cordic and brought our new coms contract with Genesys. For £7.50 a month a unit we get all the data we need (5mb) and a phone contract. all we pay is addition is for phone calls at a few pence per minute (can't remember exacts but it was good value).

We did away with the CT3000, brought an XDA from Cordic for each car (we paid £450 a car less for these, with software licence, than Auriga quoted for CT4000).

We modified our radios to work just on voice and upgraded our aerial on our roof. Local cars now have radio available, though its use is very minimal.

So I have saved 10K a year on remote site and now have GPRS and voice calls for less than I was paying just for calls.

I have a unit that goes with the driver into airports, cafe, loo wherever.

I have GPS nationwide, turnby turn navigation and a far more professional looking piece of kit.

And that is before we mention my maintenance is several thousands a year cheaper.

And when my xda becomes 'old hat' I will simply buy in tomorrow's technology and transfermy software over.

You can maintain voice for no cost, but greatly enhance you data capacity.

And the CT4000, well surely that is nearly two years late from being in use.

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

Sorry that was all rushed and rambling.

What I am saying is this.

To compare the Auriga and Evocab systems fairly you have to factor in the costs of buying and operating the CT4000. Only then are you comparing the systems like for like.

There is an option available for current Auriga Sirius users to buy the Evocab upgrade, but continue with CT3000, but this will give you nothing like the facilities in car that Cordic offers.

As a booking system I have not looked in depth at Evocab, although I believe that it is extensive in what it offers.

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

I agree in what you are saying tom to compare the 2 systems with auriga u have to get the ct 4000s but the only benefit i can see with the cordic pda is the navigation but most of my drivers already have some kind of sat nav systems in their car we as a company dont realy need gprs our pmr works fine in that we have good data coverage for the kind of work we do but a company like yours i understand need gprs cuz the kind of long distance work u do yes we have probs on our voice coverage but i am sure that will be resolved soon as for what i pay for land lines its not very expensive for me cuz i own the building wer our remote aerial site is & the other data channel is on our office so i only pay for the land line rental which is not that great over a year .As far as ur point that i wud only benefit from evo if i had the ct400s i dont think thats right many very big fleets have gone over to evo without the ct 4000s & are working very well i visited one 2 weeks ago they have nearly 600 cars & they seem to be working fine i also wud not invest in the ct 4000s at present as its not fully functional why i have gone for the evo is cuz i think it wud benefit my company in how it despatches work & also how many other extensive things it offers

Labraiz

Only you can make the decision that is best for your company, it is your wallet the money is coming from and you have to make the system work to your company's best advantage.

There is no right or wrong.

When I made my choice I knew that the Cordic system was clearly the best for me, the hardest part was cutting my ties with Auriga. I go back to 93 with them and regard Clive and Paul as friends.

Evocab certainly works, lots of evidence for that.

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

Tom thank you very much for your prompt reply. I better understand now your approach and your decison in your case. What about for someone that owns a PMR environment (including the location of PMR infrastucture) that cover very well the jobs areas.

I do not agree with you when you mention that Evocab doesn't have the possibility to dispatch the nearest cars. As much as I understood from the demo downloaded from the Auriga site, their zone-despach, which is more clever than the nearest car cars. There are many situations when the nearest distance is not the good choice (when the nearest car should pass a river and the bridge is far from its current position, for example). Moreover inside the same zone, the Evocab algorithms still take into consideration the nearest car, but also other criteria you select to configure, including their priority). Of course it is very important to well design the zone shapes.

Surely Mr Cgull on TDO it should read;

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IDFIMH

Yes, we can't edit the pictures.

Yet

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Taxi Driver Online
www.taxi-driver.co.uk

Well nearest car , in that zone was a question I specifically asked and was told it was not possible. Also I was told it wasn't what taxi companies wanted.

Well every office I have visited , and that is quite a lot, have similar zone structures. Small compact zones in town, taking into account barriers such as rivers and one way systems. Then zones gradually getting larger as you move away from town.

With Cordic I have the small and medium sized zones working on first in zone. But, with the large outside zones I have nearest car. If you have a zone ten miles by ten miles and two cars free in it when an asap job appears, do you want to send a car 9 miles away or one that is 500 yards away?

Super clever only considers the jobs ready for despatch in the next 15 seconds, a job due to be fired in the next 60 seconds is not considered.

When we talk about clever, what I want is a system that nobody has. The one that decides to send a WAV on a saloon job because there is a WAVjob round the corner from the drop off in 15 minutes.

Anyway, I am not going to criticise any deciding on Auriga, because that system still supports the vast majority of 'major' companies in the UK. So the proof of the pudding etc.......

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

Irrespective of the system in use, holding back the auto-dispatch allows more cars to clear and thus give more options for the despatching software. If you think about it, this would be true even if you were operating on pen and paper but it’s a compromise between speed of despatch and potential savings in journey time. From a drivers perspective, such a system may seem slow especially if the outstanding jobs are visible and unless you can convince them that the system is trying to work in their best interests it may cause problems.

We use a three-second-despatch cycle, which gets the jobs out pretty quickly to the next car in the area and this works well for the really busy inner city companies. We do use nearest car calculations but only to resolve multiple car issues. i.e. in the case of three eight o’clock booking becoming due, the first three cars in that area are guaranteed to get jobs even if there’s another car almost on top of one of them. This way we don’t break the golden rule of first come, first served and we can pretty much ensure that drivers don’t cross each other. Companies whose work covers a much wider area may well benefit from holding a job back for a couple of mins to attempt to find a more suitable car. But if your talking about ten miles, then surly those cars are out of area and as such could probably be best dealt with by the operator.

Of course zone sizes have been well planned and the information accurate, sadly though, far too few companies spend enough time on this aspect of their business. Make the zones too large and cars can be pulled too far, on the other hand, make them too small and it can get frustrating for the drivers. Again it’s a compromise and there’s no right and wrong answer.

Bill

[As ive been explained by auriga is this that a job will go into a 15 sec search cycle for the best car for the job but the jobs will not be shown to the drivers on their data heads while it is in the process of searching also the cycle is totally configurable from 15 secs to 3 secs so u chose what is best for ur company

Hmmm. It seems to me, that cgull blames his problems entirely on the evocab system. I've posted many replies to cgull about concerns he has raised, suggesting that he speak with his office about them. All the problems cgull has raised can be solved by him speaking to his manager(s) but obvoiusly, he has not bothered - looks to me like he likes moaning more than sorting out the problems he has.

Anyway, to put you straight on another point Mr Cgull, your company decides on the size of the plots, no one else. I suggest (as I always do) that you speak to your manager(s) about the size of the zones.

If you feel you are being pulled further than you want to be pulled, ask your manager(s) about a feture called Driver Distance Preference. This would allow drivers to choose how far to be pulled for work.

You could for example set yourself as 'primary only' in which case you would not be given a job unless it is in the zone you are in (or unless a job which you would normally be pulled for runs very late). If you set yourself as 'local work only', you might only get pulled 3 or 4 zones, 'middle distance' may pull you 6 or 7 zones, and 'far distance' may pull you the length of the search script. These 'zone pulls' are an example - as your company would decide what Local, Middle Far preferences are set to.

I would suggest you speak to your company about this feature Mr Cgull, but as mentioned above, I doubt you will.

These forums would be as boring as s*** if people didn't moan.

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IDFIMH