Taxi Driver Online

I think we must just be one of the lucky ones then as our system works no bother at all. We had a plot altered about a year ago it took 20 mins over the phone via remote assist. Mind we do have strict polocies regarding the system
1 its never used to go on the internet and very rare it goes on top admin.
2 clerkes limited to just basic stuff so they cant acidently muck anything up.
3 the wireless router is shared with no one (espicialy drivers/clerkes using phones/tablets/laptops)
4 every 3 months local pc shop comes in and cleans it all inside and out software/hardware and updates the anti virus.
None of the above was mercurys advice it was just what we decided from day one

basicly it just sits in the corner away from any heat sorce and has worked fine for 2 years. As for the background at night if its a gsmart like the ones we have then go into setings. there is a option there to turn the background light of after 10 seconds to never turning it off also volume control in there to turn it up the volume. The best button on the system is the f1 button it tells you anything you need to know about the system.
Maybe your way forward could be to deal with just one person at mercury whenever you phone up.

The above sums up Exel.

Part of mercury's idea was to stop drivers from accessing settings on PDAs. Even when I was told the 17593 code (M on a number keypad), there was so much taken out of the windows mobile that it was almost impossible to alter. Even on its darkest, the screen was too bright at night or unreadable.

Yes you can alter a plot or two over the internet but try and reshape the plots. We had stupid triangles which meant we could pop into an area that was over 10 miles away!

I hope someone can back me up on this as we couldn't have been the only ones with triangular plots. I was amazed when I was told you can use any shape. Therefore I can only assume the person that set up our plots just couldn't be bothered.

Funny but I'm sure even the mighty TD passed me over to someone else, such as plotting, as it wasn't his thing.

Unless they have got off their arses, it was TD that told me bidding was an afterthought, which meant fastest finger first took priority over the dispatch settings, and no pulling system could be implemented apart from a single mileage drag, which doesn't work well with waterways and railways.

Bunch of goons

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Datamaster don't need a sales team, they have happy customers doing it for them
Nidge for Prime Minister

Oh the brilliant triangle plots, lets not even go there. Whoever thought them up wants kicking square in the swingers. I thought it was just us who had the triangle plots.

When you first got the system they would of needed a ordanence map off you with what plots you wanted and you mark them out yourself. So if they havnt followed your instructions then you should be getting onto them everyday to put there mistake right if they dont then take your custom elsewhere and start and look for another system. And i can see mercury,s point and bill from datamaster would probally agree that the last thing you need is drivers having acsess to all the setting on the pda,s as they would be into them everyday and when they go down who would pay the bill to fix them as the office would expect them repaired under the support agreement. How many cars do you run as nidge has about 40 so could it be that the less cars you have the easier it is for the system. Also when you say the system goes down what do you mean does it freeze or just switch itself off etc etc

TownHall

That’s very true because people rather than the equipment cause the bulk of all problems. We get more than our fair share of this because we allow customers to source and set up their own devices and although it quite easy, some just don’t do it right. The devices do end up being locked to prevent tampering but the manager has the unlock code and so can adjust the settings. But as I’ve said here many times, it’s quite often the managers that are to blame for not putting the effort into doing things right. Setting the backlight intensity a bit lower will save a bit on power consumption but it really doesn't make a whole lot of difference to the battery life.

Bill

As a rule, our PDAs are locked out but still have the backlight setting available, but the mercury ones didn't have access without unlocking the PDA.

We run about 35 cars but I don't see that fewer cars makes it easier for the system. As far as I can see, a system that is set up properly runs better with more cars.

As for system going down, it used to just crash and the only way back was hitting the reset button. Mercury used one big file to hold all the data for jobs, cars, drivers, etc. and the system whilst still booting up in windows would start to repair this huge file, thus holding everything up. two hours was the normal recovery period for Mercury and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
As for our Datamaster system, well, a couple of minutes to reboot windows and maybe a hefty 5 seconds to start the dispatch software with no need for repairs. Even better than this quick recovery time is the fact that we very rarely have to do such a dramatic reboot. I don't ever remember another firm i worked at using Autocab ever having to suffer such problems either.

Let's not forget about the 'caller ID' box of Mercury. I have spent many a hour going through thousands of records deleting crossed phone numbers because the system WILL change the number should you pick up the phone before finishing a booking. I know operators shouldn't pick up until ready but this should be safe guarded against as in other packages.

I could go one for days picking out Mercury's problems but I think I shall leave it at that. As the thread title asked, there is part of my opinion of Mercury

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Datamaster don't need a sales team, they have happy customers doing it for them
Nidge for Prime Minister

Ah i thought you were running mercury. didnt realise you were on datamaster. So what extra features does datamaster have that mercury dosnt

Auto dispatch that actually works.
Virtually free textback and text booking
Can use Android and Windows phones
Intelligent address list, ie the most popular goes top rather than out of town top, local bottom as mercury does
Autotagging of numbers and address for various car types, female drivers only, or any type of tag you care to make up. Useful for barring driver or passengers from each other.
Priority on customer or place of pickup
A pull system to send nearest car/longest wait which is highly configurable, totally omitted in Mercury
A bidding system to collect bids then send most suitable car rather than fastest finger first

there are so many tweaks that auto-dispatch is a real option rather than the Mercury way of if you want it to behave then go on manual dispatch.

Also it cost less to install and run and you get real backup if something goes wrong.

Just too much to list here. You would need to sit down with it and have a good poke around.

We still haven't invested in the office ticketing machine or the IVR. We don't need them just yet.

_________________
Datamaster don't need a sales team, they have happy customers doing it for them
Nidge for Prime Minister

So what if the PDA's have trouble plotting you when the battery drains to 10% !
The bloody setup comes with cradles so why are the culprits not using them ?
Solution....put them in the cradles and leave them in the cradles then you won't have a problem.
Again, a lot of stick is aimed at Exel when if fact it's usually the muppets using the system that's the problem !
We've had ours 12 months now, yeah, had a few niggles but if you understand the damn thing and have a bit of noddle upstairs then you can easily iron out any shortcomings yourself.
It's a great system and their support is bang on.
If you're not technically minded though, you may struggle with its frailties. If you are, then you'll have no trouble tackling it.
We've had a few issues with the PDA's and almost every time it's been down to drivers [edited by admin] about with the PDA's and not knowing what they're doing, even though they've been told a hundred times before......they just don't listen !

What if they've not got cradles?

Muppets using the system, have you worked with any other system?

Exel will always get stick because they're a bunch of inept twats who haven't got the faintest idea about the Taxi Trade and how it works.

If you ain't got cradles then you ain't got the full system then have you ?
Why wouldn't you have cradles ?

And no I haven't used another system but I have plenty of pals in the trade who are using a variety of different systems and they ain't no better overall.
Autocab possibly being one of the most expensive (by far) and worse (by far).
It's like anything else in life, not all things suit everyone but if something doesn't suit then that doesn't make it rubbish !

This is a copy of a post on here about excel, it says they set up a taxi company, so they should know how the taxi trade works Nidge.

I laughed at one of the Excel vvankers the other week when he came out with that, I replied with, Richard Moore the owner of Excel and his father Harold Moore who is a Director of Excel stole over £2million pounds from ex miners setting up a Taxi Company back in the 90's, the Taxi Company went bust but they walked away with a few hundred thousand pounds in their Sky rockets.

I also told him that the so called Mercury Mobile booking system was stolen from Diplomat after Stuart Harding gave Richard Moore a leg up onto the ladder.

Back in 2002 Richard Moore was given some sales space by Stuart Harding at The Donnington Taxi show selling Sat Navs on Diplomats stand. Richard Moore repaid Stewart by stabbing him in the back and stealing his Diplomat Navigator codes and renaming it Mercury Mobile with the help of a guy called Mike Scott.

Anyway, I find our Mercury works just fine.
Might not be perfect but you'll struggle to find anything that is.
It's a very easy to use system that has settled in very well into our taxi business.
Maybe it helped that I have used Mercury before on another company when I was just a driver.

But I certainly wouldn't say Mercury is as bad as you are suggesting.
You sound a very angry and aggressive type of guy.
Could this be getting in the way of things ?

I'm bored with this post now.
No more replies on it from me. I've said my bit.
Back to the keyboard and guess what ? It's all working just fine !