ONE UNIVERSAL APP — A BOON FOR CUSTOMERS AND CABBIES

JOHN BLISS

Hailing a cab is now easier with one single universal app on your smartphone that hails the cab that’s physically closest to you no matter where you are in any city, any country, or your favorite watering hole at home or elsewhere.  You can even flag a nearby cab with such an app on an isolated dirt road in the country where your car just ran out of gas.

It won’t matter which cab company is involved as long as the driver or his company is registered with the app.  Clearly, new technology such as this is a godsend for the travelling public who need such transportation in as timely a fashion as humanly possible with a well trained professional driver behind the wheel.

Travelers want such a service for reasons that are obvious and so do most drivers but with taxi brokers—especially large taxi companies in big cities, it is quite another story.  They are steadfastly opposed to it and it seems anything else for that matter that would benefit the customer.  They are quite content to have unwashed, ill-educated persons driving a run down rust bucket arriving two hours after the customer placed the call.  They are afraid that such technology or centralized dispatching as it’s often called will kill competition and put them out of business.

Let’s examine some of the advantages and disadvantages of such dispatching:

1: COMPETITION AND DRIVER CONTROL:

Effective competition is in reality more between drivers than cab companies themselves.

For example: A customer voices concerns to a company about a driver’s unsatisfactory service and decides not to use that company again.  She now calls a competing company in the hope of getting better service than the previous company, only to have the same miscreant driver show up at her door.  The first company fired the driver over complaints and he merely starts work with the second company.  So much for interbroker competition.

Effective driver control is undoubtedly what distinguishes good companies from bad ones but owing to the forgoing reasons, it is no guarantee of customer safety and satisfaction.

A universal app with its filtration system can easily deal with that kind of problem easily.  Such apps allow the customer, on completion of the trip to rate the driver, usually on a 5 star system.  Five stars means the customer would be glad to have that driver transport her again.  That means such a driver would be sent before others are considered if he is close enough.  A single star signifies that a drivers as described above would not be sent.

 Government regulators employ taxi inspectors who handle any and all comments about service and will investigate complaints, particularly more serious ones, and are considered peace officers.  In Calgary and most other cities simply dial 311 to voice your comments on a driver’s performance.  

2:  SETTING FARES:

Modern taxi apps can now do something else:  Calculate the fare and collect the fare in advance as other transportation modes do.

When a customer hails a cab through an app and enters his or her destination, the required fare appears on the screen and the customer then accepts or rejects the service offer prior to dispatching a cab.

Even cash and random street hails can handle such a metering method.  What’s important here is you have a happy customer with fewer incidents of taxi fraud.

It’s obvious that such technology has completely upended public transportation, particularly the taxi/limousine industry in general.  And unless the taxi industry gets into the 21st century, it will undoubtedly go the way of the dinosaur.

ProCabby is the only company that has the technology to offer the sort of services described above.  Customers don’t want their smartphone screens cluttered with numerous apps offering identical services.

The taxi industry will make a lot more money when they put the customer’s interests first and led the driver earn a respectable living.

ProCabby’s technology will achieve exactly that!

 

Problems with Uber and TNC’s in General

Persons who use TNCs such as Uber or Lyft should view the CBC’s October 22, 2018 broadcast of “The Fifth Estate” titled “The Problem With Uber” and it’s detrimental impact on the quality and safety of the riding public in Taxis, Limousines and Private for Hire such as Uber. The program is shown below.

Most governments have strict laws regarding such modes of travel commonly referred to as the taxi or livery industry.  The problem is that Uber came along and barged into the market place like a bull in a china shop with absolutely no regard for local laws governing such services.  They have even failed to take criminal background checks on new and existing drivers.

Calgary, for example requires all cab drivers to have an annually updated enhanced criminal background check which includes cases pending before the courts and court restraining orders. Uber drivers get a criminal review on their first license but it’s not clear on their license renewal as they are not required to have local regulators do it–they entirely rely on Uber’s purported annual review if any.

Fortunately, unlike the taxi industry, they do not service women’s shelters or unaccompanied children.

So which would you rather have show up at your door, a screened professional driver who’s undergone exhaustive driver training and  regular criminal checks or someone possibly unworthy on any trust you would bestow upon him.

 

Centralized Taxi Dispatching–a godsend for taxi drivers & passengers

The consensus of Calgary’s politicians as witnessed at their Standing Policy Committee (SPC) on Community and Protective Services meeting of last October 3, 2018  appears to be that a taxi centralized dispatching system—a godsend for an industry beleaguered by the invasion of Uber, is on its way to Calgary.

Centralizing taxi dispatch will undoubtedly eliminate horrid response times wheelchair bound travellers experience, and substantially improve the quality of service to the overall general public.

ProCabby Ltd is an Ottawa based company who hopes to fill the bill right here in Calgary and across North America and overseas.

Their model works like this: A customer calls a cab in the usual fashion or with ProCabby’s App itself on their smartphone and the cab that is physically closest to that customer will get the trip regardless the company that cab is affiliated with.

Travellers can use it in any city where ProCabby is available. Right now, they are launching in over 30 North American cities.

The reality is that few customers really care which taxi company transports them. All they really want is a highly professional driver with a clean car showing up in a timely fashion to carry them from A to B at reasonable cost without incident.

Committed and well-trained full-time career drivers are the only people that can provide such service—if local governments will let them.

The taxi industry is one of the most regulated industries in the economy—and it shows with the adnauseous red tape every time a company tries to respond to changing market conditions such as sizing their fleets to match demand. It all too often takes years before the bureaucrats and politicians are willing to resolve such issues while the public suffers.

The result was Uber barging into the market like a bull in a china shop without any regard for local legislation—and bamboozle the public into believing that Uber is their salvation with cheaper fares (Taxi fares are regulated, and Uber deliberately undercuts them), fueled by their lie that taxis are never clean, and the drivers are obnoxious.

The truth is that ProCabby’s presence in any city will substantially improve the quality of service to the public and boost the incomes of drivers and the companies who employ them.
ProCabby offers the public well-trained and professional drivers who will be on time for your trip. I can only wish them the best of luck in all of their endeavours.

Both customers and drivers are urged to register now even if the service is currently unavailable where you live as your registration will function as a petition whenever ProCabby has to deal with local governments and taxi companies.  Click here for more information on their website or e-mail support@procabby.com .  You may phone or text them at 1-833-PROCABY (1-833-776-2229)

For the record, I was the first speaker at Calgary’s SPC meeting of October 3rd so click here to hear my presentation and the committee’s reaction.