An Innovative Automatic System by Digitax Automotive Electronics for assigning taxi rides

Angelomaria Cellilli, the General Secretary OF UTI interviewed the President of the Pesaro Taxi Association, Giorgio Remedi.

Can you tell us what it’s about?

It’s an automatic system for the assignment of taxi rides.

What are the innovations introduced by the Digitax system compared to previous systems?

Customers are greeted by an automatic welcoming message, after which they are asked to choose between an immediate trip or a booking.
The call is then transferred to the mobile phone number of the taxi driver who has been assigned the job, so as to be able to communicate directly with customers and therefore give a better response to their needs.
As well as this, it improves the transparency of our work, fairly distributing the calls workload among our colleagues.

How have your working methods changed?

Previously we had to wait for calls while queueing in our cars; instead, with the new Digitax system, we can now leave our cars and receive requests in any location that can be reached by a mobile phone, and why not, even when we are sitting in a bar perhaps in front of a good cup of coffee or, during the night-time for example, directly at home.
As well as getting rid of the need to be physically present near the call queue, it also results in a fairer distribution of calls to our associates and to taxis in the territory, thereby guaranteeing a better service to customers.
In the past, for example, there were occasion when there were no drivers available to reply to a customer’s call, which evidently meant losing jobs.

What are the criteria for assigning jobs?

Inside the system there is a taxi queue according to whose turn it is, and also the gps positions of all the taxis communicated via Gprs by the devices installed in the vehicles.
The taxis are chosen on the basis of their position in the virtual queue and its position in the territory.

Is it simple to use?

Since the management of requests and job assignments is completely automatic, it is sufficient to reply to calls on our mobile phones.

The CO.TA.P. is a small to medium size concern in relation to the Italian Association of Taxi Drivers; was buying a Digitax control system an important investment?

The low purchasing cost and low management costs contributed in a positive way to the choice of system, which we believed was worthwhile. 
If we then consider the increase in turnover we have seen in the first ten months of use, we have calculated that the costs we have sustained will be paid back within a year of the start of the new service.

An article taken from "Il Tassista Italiano"