Taxi Driver Online

I'm guessing these people that are in front of their pc's aren't all using the same booking software are they?

I'll put it on my "how to implement" list, but I know when I'm booking a taxi I like to speak to the person on the phone - it makes the booking more "real" that he/she's actually going to pick me up

_________________
http://www.TaxiPricer.com - Customer to Taxi, Fast!

I'm trying to workout a way of allowing Companies to enter in fixed routes/prices. Clearly each Company has their own, but how do you guys go about calculating these?

Like say if someone wanted to Leicester to Stansted airport, I could probably do something whereby it recognises an LE postcode origin and end postcode for stansted airport - thats reasonable, but its the shorter distances. like say a city's suburbs to its center that baffle me

How about time based, so if you could set a threshold and then a cost per minute. So for example, you might say "any journey's over 20 minutes will be charged by the minute at £1.10 rather than by mile" - would that be good for those of you that do long distances or fixed routes?

_________________
http://www.TaxiPricer.com - Customer to Taxi, Fast!

TaxiPricer: Many of these calculations are based on the perceived thickness of the Punter's wallet!

Of course most of the PH Companies have Quote Sheets, which tell them that Leicester to Stansted is £xx. That is the price they quote.

They don't worry that the pbd (poor bloody Driver) has to fund the time and fuel required to get to the pick-up point or that the pick-up point is on the far side of town and he is going to have to drive an extra 10 miles to complete the Booking.

That's not their business ~ Their business is to get that Punter to use one of their Cars, almost regardless of the potential profit for the Driver.

_________________
Don't dream it ~ Be it.

Hi All

** Charge Per Minute Added**

Just to let you know we’ve now enhanced the quoting algorithms by allowing you to charge per minute as well as per mile. What this means is that you can now put your normal Mileage Rates on there but also include new rates to say “If the journey goes over X minutes, charge the journey at £#.## per minute” instead.

So what happens here is that the system will calculate both rates per mile & minute but and then present the customer with the cheapest. Rest assured, it will only show the “by minute” rate if the journey has gone over your minutes threshold that you set (and will default to the by mile rate if you have one set)

This was requested by a couple of TaxiPricer members and comes in handy when doing longer routes.

As ever, any questions/comments/feedback please dont hesitate to get in touch!

_________________
http://www.TaxiPricer.com - Customer to Taxi, Fast!

I think you are trying to get a product that fits all and you are going to end up with a product that fits nothing. It certainly isn't going to be suitable for Hackney carriages.

_________________
Grandad,

Hi grandad
Thanks for your comments and I hear what you're saying about Hackney carriages as they're obviously tied to their district's rates. What's important about this most recent change is that it isn't compulsory to charge by both, so if you're operating a Hackney carriage and can only quote by the mile then you use just these rates. If, however, you also operate Private Hire (or offer Private Hire only), then you have the option to use this pricing structure as well.

Granted this feature was requested by those involved more in the Private Hire but I'm more than open to suggestions from either side. There's no way I will tailor the app to suit 1 side more than the other - the 2 have to co-exist. The purpose of the app is, and will always be, for a punter to find a local Taxi and get a price.

_________________
http://www.TaxiPricer.com - Customer to Taxi, Fast!

TP: I believe that this is true for all Regions.

Hackneys are allowed to charge whatever the want ~ So long as it is no greater the Metered Price would have been.

_________________
Don't dream it ~ Be it.

You have a real nightmare - Hackney Carriages generally charge a combination.

When stopped the meter changes over to time, when you move off again the "Clock" stops and the odometer starts again.

So if a Tariff says "Flagfall - £1.00 then 20p every 176yards" you would expect a 1 mile journey to be exactly £3.00 and you would sometimes be right. But if you stop at traffic lights twice for 20 seconds each and at a Junction you stop for 20 seconds once, if the Tariff says "Waiting charged at 20p per minute" then the total on the meter will be £3.20 at one mile.

But that is the simple version.

Meters are actually cleverer than that.

Same one mile journey at the same rates but only 1 stop for lights of 20 seconds - how much now?

Could be £3.00 but also could be £3.20 - how can that be?

The meter actually does not charge in such simplistic ways. I saw the equation once - in PHTM I think. Someone who knows him could ask Bryan with a Y to print it again, lots of people would appreciate it.

The meter "Converts" the 20 seconds into a distance for the fare calculation - touch and go whether the punter gets the £3.00 and so an advantage or the Hack driver hits lucky and gets £3.20 for the job.

Having said all that - I can pump an address into my satnav for an out of town negotiated fare, put the distance in miles and tenths of miles into a spreadsheet on my mobile and I get the result. I do not allow any waiting time, yet strangely I have never been more than 60p out compared to the meter. That 60p equates at Plymouth Tariff to 2 X 400yd drops. Usually it is within 30p - in both cases that is plus or minus of course. The real beauty is that the calculation is done at the point of hiring.

To quote "Plymouth to Exeter" is OK but if you go from the East end of Plymouth to the West end of Exeter it will be less than Centre to Centre and West End Plymouth to East end Exeter could be substantially more.

A lot of drivers do not want the Punter to come with a rate for out of town work already in mind. They prefer to “Start the Bidding”.
Personally I always tell them the expected meter rate, admit I want X pounds for dead mileage coming back. I will settle for this total as a maximum but will run the meter and charge by the meter if it is less.

But best of luck to you – you will have to do really well to be better than my satnav/spread sheet combination.

_________________
Chris The Fish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdlyi5mc ... re=related

Almost right - if you leave the Licensing District Hacks can charge what they like if negotiated before the journey starts. It does not however have to be less than the meter would have charged.

Within the District the Hack driver can run the meter (illegal not to) then offer a discount, but more than the meter is illegal.

_________________
Chris The Fish

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gdlyi5mc ... re=related

Wow, that gives a great insight into the workings. I never knew about the flicking to time when stationary then changing again - this is great stuff, thanks Chris. So, if I'm not mistaken when a Hackney Carriage is working within its district it legally cannot exceed the district rates. So if TaxiPricer quotes you by the mileage only then, it wont cater for waits and therefore will "undercharge" by not including them. Yes it might be slightly less than if it did include the waits, but at least its not overcharging so there's no legal wrong doing.


I'd be interested to hear how your sat nav/spreadsheet fares compare to those provided by TaxiPricer. Please do sign up if you haven't done already and we can run some tests if you like?


I agree, and as a punter I'd expect to type in exactly where I'm starting and exactly where I'm going to.

_________________
http://www.TaxiPricer.com - Customer to Taxi, Fast!

Wow, that gives a great insight into the workings. I never knew about the flicking to time when stationary then changing again - this is great stuff, thanks Chris. So, if I'm not mistaken when a Hackney Carriage is working within its district it legally cannot exceed the district rates. So if TaxiPricer quotes you by the mileage only then, it wont cater for waits and therefore will "undercharge" by not including them. Yes it might be slightly less than if it did include the waits, but at least its not overcharging so there's no legal wrong doing.


[/quote]
And that is where the problems will begin.
The punter will get in the car with the price from your site which can't possibly show any waiting time so the driver gets to the destination and asks for say 60 pence more than your calculation and he will get accused of overcharging. I have actually had 2 women come up to my car and ask to go to a destination and quoted me a price that they got from one of these taxi pricing sites and it was obviously way to cheap so They expected me to do the job for that money. I politely sugested that they use another taxi.

_________________
Grandad,

Hi All

I thought I'd map out the areas covered by TaxiPricer.com, we're certainly making some progress!

As always, we're continuing our marketing campaign to try and bring as many Taxi/Private Hire companies onboard, until there's nothing but red markers

_________________
http://www.TaxiPricer.com - Customer to Taxi, Fast!

I must applaud you in getting this up and running and asking for advice on a Taxi Forum where there is a plethora of information from many many decent drivers. The best thing about it is, "it's free" to, that is something we don't see when people come on here plying their ideas for an all singing and dancing bit of kit.

I wish you well I seriously do.

It's already beginning to look like a Discounters website...No way can I compete with the 50p per mile brigade who say they can travel 65 miles in a stated 10 minutes. then do a run at about 2/3rds of a half reasonable rate.

No, Like any other such site it throws up the Cheap and Nasties before the realstically priced guys.

_________________
Free Classifieds