Taxi Driver Online

Hi

I just like to get some opinions on the different dispatch methods controllers use and what controllers prefer. ie auto dispatch or manual dispatch, closest cab, overall cab, first come first serve, a combination of the two etc and how well do you think their system handles this when manually dispatching and whilst on auto?

Does auto dispatch work well without GPS?

Being a large firm and running on auto dispatch is probably more practical but do small and medium size firms really benefit from this?

I recently went to view a PDA based system and found that their manual dispatch was rather unconventional ie drag and drop a job onto a car rather than tap in the callsign and off goes the job to the driver who's been waiting the longest. And they seem to base their system around auto dispatching which i feel is neglecting small and medium sized businesses who rely on manual dispatch to equally distribute work. One thing i know for sure is drivers dont like sitting around and see other cars whizzing past a couple of times with passengers in each time.

Finally which system would you recommend or like to have??

Auto dispatch is good.

Nearest car I hate.

I suspect the reason they give so many options is because every cab firm works slightly differently.

Basically I think you need to spend a lot of time getting the set up right for your firm before you start.

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IDFIMH

We use mercury, to use auto dispatch the system has to be set up perfect.
The thing that worries me about auto dispatch is that if you have a load of drivers at the base and one on the road, the driver on the road could in theory be going from job to job because he is the nearest.
Also with auto dispatch it may send a driver to a job that you might not want to do that job(new driver, customer does'nt want driver, etc.)
I have seen auto dispatch working at a large(80 cars) cab office and the controller said they did'nt have any problems with it.

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stressed controller!!!

Depends on drivers telling the system where they are, and not where they think the work is

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http://wingsoverscotland.com/ http://www.newsnetscotland.com/

I think with some systems you can set it so the same driver doesn't kop the lot, and even if he is nearest another driver that's not done a bean gets priority.

That I like.

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IDFIMH

With Cordic you have no choice. The controller has to change his mindset from the old auriga systemwhere we never had auto switched on.

Our controllers are now pre allocating in advance of fire time jobs they want covered by particular drivers.

The system is so configurable that you have control over what happens where.

For example in our smaller 'intown' zones, we go first car. Out of town in larger zones it is always nearest car.

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

with cordic preference is given to the nearest car rather than the driver who has been waiting the longest, and if the longest waiting car moves from one zone to the other, he joins the end of the queue rather than go to the top. therefore he has to wait even longer.

on our current system we use plot queue and closest cab ie the first vehicle that is clear in the zone gets the job and if no cars in the plot then closest cab gets the job. Also drivers have the flexibility to move around without losing their overall position, so if they been waiting the longest they always go to the top of the queue.

Ah no.

With Cordic you have the choice of setting the parameters for each zone.

So each zone can have its own parameters of first car or nearest car.

If youlook outside the zone you also get the choice of calling off from other zones in a particular order or look at several zones in unison.

If a driver is roaming around, zone to zone then I can't see why he should maintain his position in a zone he has chosen to leave?

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A member of the Hire or Reward Industry

I think it depends on the size of you organisation if you want manual dispatch or auto dispatch for our fleet it would be impossible say to go on manual dispatch on a saturday night with 180 drivers on the road so it is all dependent on your size their is no good or bad way

I thinks Labriaz’s comment is just about spot on that said I know of many small companies that only use auto if only to eliminate the possibility of feeding. I always say that a good operator will be better than any system auto but the problem is that good operators cant be available 24/7 or able keep up their good work especially when it’s busy.

We always stick to what we call the "Golden Rule" of only dispatching to the car that’s been waiting the longest in that area even if there’s a nearer car. The only time distance comes into the equation is when there are several jobs all due in the same area at the same time and in this case the system does use a nearest car algorithm but will always dispatch to the cars that have been there the longest. (hope that makes sense)

Don’t want to bore everyone with detailed explanations of how things work but the more complicated you make the rules for auto dispatch, the more difficult it becomes to resolve any who got what arguments.

Bill

We went live with Mercury on Tuesday night, it was the first weekend this weekend we've used it, it was spot on only a few mishaps along the way nothing which can't be sorted on Monday morning, me I had a good night with mileage down and takings up, it was dropping me onto each job give or take a couple of miles. We had one little problem at 3am this morning when O2 in their wisdom decided to update their network everything went down so we had to go back onto voice.

doesnt any system interact, with the cars unit telling the base unit where they are, and nearest jobs going to the nearest car/vehicle whilst showing the location in real time onscreen back at base?

the car/vehicle simply needs a gps receiver and the vehicle a pda with the correct software on the gprs service feeding back to the base

i know a free system that works, in fact two....

Please tell more........

will pm you tomorow

Any chance of a PM aswell ?

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Gaffer