Taxi Driver Online

We do run a lot of buses, about twice as many as we do taxis now!

Andrew

It must be a while back but I do remember talking with you. The data units are still the same cost but they've been re-engineered to more compact and have inbuilt GPS. We also do GPRS stuff these days and many of our customers are moving that way. We dont sell PDA's you just get them on contract from whichever provider you chose then download the code from our server. Total cost from us is a one off £25 per car then £1 per month providing the cars working and if it isn't there's no charge!

You still running mainly busses?

Bill

I will drop you line tomorrow, but would like to have another look at the new units, but would prefer them to be PMR.

Do you offer a mixed solution, where both GPRS and PMR could be used?

Just think the GPRS would be of some use in the MPV's that do long distance contract work.

The system runs either or both it really doesn’t matter. The systems come on a long way since you had your demo disc and I think you might be in for a bit of a shock. There’s quite a few users in your area and I reckon any one of them would let you have look at their system and give you the lowdown.

I might be in the office tomorrow but I’ve been off for a couple of days with the flu and I’m still a bit flakey! Ask for me anyway. The numbers 01925 850717.

Bill

Have you got any photos of the new units Bill? I've looked on the site but the old ones are on there, they bring back memories.

Yes.. I looked too, and with respect, the data-units look very dated. It would be good to see what you are offering now.

Well don’t get too excited, the new Mk5 units aren’t that much different to look at and retain the original screen and key format but it’s been re-engineered for greater reliability. The internals are completely different with an extremely fast processor, a lot more memory and a lot less components. They were designed primarily as drop in replacements for existing fleets rather than a bells and whistles let’s attract more customers thing.

The custom case was designed to allow us to do a full colour VGA and touch screen version but this idea had to be shelved because market research indicated that few companies would pay for such niceties while PDA suppliers are offering just these kinds of features for free.

A word of warning though. We’ve done a lot of new for old replacement deals where we buy back the old units and destroy them to prevent them going back on the second hand market but we can’t do this where customers are moving to PDAs. As a result, second user units are now being offered which are well past their sell by dates and which may not work with other radios and my personal advise is to steer well clear of them.

I’ll get a photo up next time I’m in the office.

Bill

Thanks for the info. How about a trip to china for some off the shelf units? http://www.alibaba.com/showroom/Mobile_ ... minal.html

That bloody Stuart Harding gets everywhere

Jeckle, I've worked with Bill's system and I'll tell you something it works very well indeed, it's simple to use and the best thing about it is, it earns you money.

And I can well believe that.

I can not believe anybody running on a windows platform would want to go back to a dos system that is like replacing a car for a horse & cart but each to their own as far as the autocab system is concerned no one who uses it espically on this forum tells you anything good about it even though i know they have 100s of sites now but even still a system that uses the quickest finger to bid for a job & can't do closest car or closest zone is a no no for me

Is it still quickest finger!! Good grief... horse and cart technology!

We swapped to the Autocab system in early 2005 from Auriga's Sirius system. Our Autocab system was running then on the Windows 2000 platform.

I think the confusion comes from the fact that the software has a dos look and feel about it - i.e. you dont use a mouse to interact with it. I imagine it was originally in its early versions a dos program. The system is constantly evolving and the version we have now runs under Windows XP.

Im of the opinion that just because if evolved from dos doesnt necessarily mean it is poor - as long as it does what you want it to do.

As for bidding for work - fastest finger 1st is only 1 option. You can also set the system to collect all bids in a time period e.g. 10 seconds then compare them to a zone table to allocate the work to the car in the closest zone. This feature has been around for several years.

Chris

Interesting, thanks for the information. Like a lot of systems, the set-up config is not always understood by the operators.