Taxi Driver Online

i was at an office recently which had just replaced its old auriga system with a new autocab one.

it appeared to me that the new autocab system was running a DOS based program operating on the windows platform via a DOS / windows conversion program.

has this office got the new autocab system or is it an old one that has been modded to look like its operating on windows.

he thinks he has a windows based system, i didnt want to contradict him.

can anyone help ?

I thought it was a DOS system but I could be wrong.

Ours was Dos, why not ask Auto cab? A simple email should tell you

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Looks like they have opened a dos window in windows IMHO.

That'll be a good resource hogger

Auto-Cab is probably a reasonable system... but it is NOT Windows based.

Additionally, Auto-Cab, being owned by one person, is currently willing to to sell a system to any Auriga customer at a knock down price.

Promises to a company recently (ex-Auriga) to provide the latest data-heads did not happen and they are using an older unit instead.

However, I am sure that there are many very delighted customers who are very happy with what they have. But, Auto-Cab lacks certain features that Auriga have.

Auriga is expensive, and the monthly back-up package is expensive too, but I supposed you pay for what you get.

... and Auto-Cab have a very high turn-over of sales reps.

Would you expand that comment, please?

From the drivers point of view there is Driver Preference. This allows each driver to specify how far they wish to travel for a job. i.e. Primary - The zone you are in only, and then (customised to each system) such as perhaps... Three areas.... Five areas... and beyond.

The driver can chop and change preferences as many times as he wishes.

During the busy periods the drivers may wish to restrict the distance they wish to run. During quieter times drivers may wish to run further.

I am not aware of Auto-Cab havng this.

Built in Real time Sat-Nav in the CT4 or CT Pocket.. Not just static maps in the Auto-Cab units.

With regard to Auto-Cab being a DOSS system. I think that some company owners who are not as technically minded may be fooled into believing they have purchased a Windows system....... unless of course Auto-Cab have very recently re-written their system... but I doubt it.

Perhaps someone would like to email Auto-Cab and ask for a statement on their system? international@autocab.com

There’s actually nothing really wrong with using code written for dos provided it’s packaged to run correctly on a modern operating system. For the life of me though, I just can’t understand why they haven’t moved forward.

We dropped Dos thirteen years ago mainly because people were telling us that it looked so outdated. But aside from that, we found sever limitations and attempting to include additional features would often result in the code becoming unstable. Even minor changes brought sharp intakes of breath from our programmers so we cut our losses and restarted from scratch using Windows before we got too far in.

As regards features, all the packages will have some options that others don’t have but that’s just the way software evolves. If a customer requests a specific feature, it generally gets built in as an option that others may choose to use. We say if anything’s not there in our code, it isn’t because we can’t do it, it’s more likely to be that nobody’s asked for it.

Bearing in mind though our experience with adding new features under Dos, it’s a fair assumption that the Autocab programmers would have seen similar issues and this might account for any lack of extra features.

Bill

So anyone investing in AutoCab are investing in a system that could possibly lack good features offered elsewhere because it is behind the times?

Bill, are there any other taxi dispatch systems that employ DOS instead of windows?

Thanks for all the replies it has confirmed what i thought

i cant believe they are sending out a system running on last centuries software, the owner of the office i am referring to swapped out from the auriga system because it was running in a DOS environment and he wanted to upgrade.

he was given an unbelievable price by autocab and was (and is) happy with the system, so i am not sure whether i should inform him he is still running on the same software as he was before upgrading, i was only there to look at a few radios so he may not appreciate me sticking my nose in

having seen the system he has i must admit i was a little dissapointed

thanks again

As I stated, any Auriga site will be sold an AutoCab system at a knock down price...but anyone wishing to move away from DOS should do more homework.

And I feel sorry for anyone who has possibly been fooled into thinking they have recently purchased a "new" Windows system because in actual fact it is really old hat.

Perhaps this is why AutoCab can afford to sell their systems to old Auriga sites so cheaply.

But if it works for them.. all well and good.

(I dont work for Auriga by the way)

As a long term Auriga Sirius user, we are giving serious consideration to moving to Autocab.

The backup and ongoing licensing from Auriga is so expensive. I understand that it is because Auriga built their system using oracle databases, which is where the licence fees come in. Since Autocab's system is dos based their isn't such issues with licensing, allowing Autocab to sell the systems at a very competitive price.

Also, as a long term user of windows PC's and DOS PC's, I have always found the dos systems to run much faster, and more stable than anything that involves windows. I understand the speed issues are due to Windows requiring more memory for the graphics, but this also puts more strain on the hardware.

I do believe that the evocab system is an incredible package, but it is far to advanced for most taxi companies. Since Auriga won't continue to support Sirius or to produce a more cut down version of evocab they will continue to lose ground to Autocab in the terms of sales.

Yes.. I think all of what you have stated is absolutely correct.

A windows system will be more memory hungry, but considering the small expense of memory nowadays and the massive availibilty that should not really be a problem.

The Golden question is what is the advantage over one particular system? I know that Auriga has Evo in constant development with new features in the pipe line. A regular "Customer News" keeps Evo users up to date with what is planned.

I am sure that AutoCab is efficient and meets the needs of many users, but as not being an AutoCab user I am not privy to news on future updates and development.

It would be a great exercise to have a direct comparison of each system on paper.

I think the main question for AutoCab would be "When do you envisage using Windows if ever?" Perhaps the developement costs are too high to produce which is why it is cheaper.

I suppose you "Pay your money and take your choice"

Jeckle
To my knowledge I do know of two other legacy systems still in use but these “companies” simply maintain existing systems and don’t carry out any development work or take on new customers. These are exceptions and as far as I know everyone (apart from Autocab) have moved away from Dos.

Mc Pi
I think there must be more to that story because you don’t move from a company who has a Windows product to one that doesn’t if you want to get away from Dos. It’s more likely that Auriga wanted too much dosh to upgrade and Autocab jumped at the chance but that’s just business.

Andrew
I sure your name rings a distant bell with me? Did you or do you run a lot of busses? Maybe we’ve sent you some info in the past. Your right in that older applications were usually written to be very efficient, working on small arrays that didn’t demand much in terms of memory or processing power and so tend to be very stable. This is what I was saying earlier though, when you start pushing these limits, reliability starts to suffer and you do need to move on to more uptodate methods that can make full use of the improvements in PC technology. It’s no good having software that will run on a five amp fuse in a biscuit tin if it won’t do what you want it to.

As for costs I can’t really comment because while you’d expect me to know what the competition charges, the truth is that I don’t. I can tell you that we’ve never charged anyone to upgrade their software including back in the days when we moved people away from Dos or have we ever charged anyone a penny for any requested software modification. As a result we’ve never had a customer leave us for lack of service or because our charges are too high. It’d be interesting though to draw up some comparisons to find out what people are paying for their systems though.

Bill

Hi Bill,

We did look into datamaster, but we couldn't get away with the data units, software looked impressive though!

Though, with your policy on software, it might be worth a closer look at the units!