Taxi Times International - June 2015 - English

NEWS
GUEST COMMENTARY
CHANGE AT
ANTWERP-TAX:
35 HYBRIDS
AND RESTYLING
All change at Antwerp-Tax, Antwerp’s
largest taxi company (101 cabs and 19
affiliated independents). In a remarkable
and sudden change it switched back from
silver grey to its ‘old’ company colour
(black) with a yellow and black magnetic
checker band and yellow and black roofsign.
At the same time the company is adding
Mercedes-Benz E300 BlueTEC HYBRID
to its fleet. “Our family company used
black from 1960 to 2000”, says CEO Koen
Van Oorschot. “And then switched to silver-grey,
which everyone here in town copied.
When the city administration
indicated it would like a more visible taxi
identity, we came up with this. For limowork
the magnetic stripes can easily be
removed.”
NEW APP TAKES UP THE FIGHT
AGAINST CLUB QUEUES
Antwerp-Tax’ first hybrids – taxis and vans – in front of Antwerp’s town-hall.
“Since 2013 we have been looking for an
environmentally-friendly vehicle, and
found the solution in these E300-hybrids.
The average usage of 3,8 litre per 100 km
sounded interesting, as did the CO2-emission
of 99 g/km. In practice these figures
have proved to be sound. Now we hope that
the local regulator will add extra taxi ranks
for hybrid and electrical cabs.” wf
DOES MAYOR JOHNSON
HIT THE MINICAB
AND UBER-BRAKES?
MOVING
BEYOND
THE ELEPHANT
IN THE ROOM
“I love Airbnb, it is fantastic! What a great
opportunity.” This was said with a lot of
enthusiasm by one of the speakers at the
TAXIintell conference. It was shocking to me
to hear the same person state: “But come
on, Uber is something completely different..”
PIETER VAN DE GLIND
Pieter van de Glind is co-founder
of shareNL, author of SHARE,
researcher, advisor to government
and industry on collaborative
(sharing) economy related issues.
Taxi Stockholm’s Köspejarna-app
helps fight the queues.
Again Taxi Stockholm’s has dug deep in
its trip and ideas database: the company
which brought its customers the free incab
psychologist and Taxitrails, the tourist
hot-spots with tips from the locals,
now takes up the fight against the number
one enemy of a good night out – the
club queue.
With the help of live data from thousands
of taxi rides, Stockholm’s clubbers
get to know when it’s time to head for
the venue.
Stockholm’s club queues are perhaps the
biggest enemy of a good night out in
town. Taxi Stockholm has noticed that
the more taxi rides there are to a place,
the longer the queue is. Now they’ve
decided to use this link to help Stockholm’s
party people.
Taxi Stockholm has developed the
line scout app, called Köspejarna, which
gathers live data from the 700 cabs on
the road each night and gives taxi users
the inside track on the queue, so they
can arrive at the perfect time. “We have
so many eyes on Stockholm and so much
data, which we’re combining with modern
technology to benefit locals and visitors
alike. Last summer we set up the
Taxitrails tourist guide, which reveals
Stockholmers’ favourite spots off the
usual tourist trail”, says Carina Herly,
Marketing Manager at Taxi Stockholm.
Köspejarna gives an estimate of how
long the queue is at a club, based on live
data from the thousands of taxi rides
taken each evening. There is also the
option to set an alert and even get a message
when it’s time to order a taxi. wf
Despite the fact that most of the 23.000
London cabbies vote Conservative, that
party’s London mayor Boris Johnson is not
exactly in the cabby’s good books. They
think he is far too kind to the private hire
sector and indirectly to Uber. For the technology
group London is one of its most
important cities. Apparently mayor Johnson
is behind new laws which could put a
cap on the number of private hire vehicles
(‘minicabs’) and indirectly threaten the
growth of Uber – estimated at 1.200 new
drivers a month. With 14.000 drivers Uber
is now the largest transportation provider
in London. Last year, according to Transport
for London, the local regulator, the
number of private hire vehicle licences
rose from 52,000 to 77,000. According to
local insiders, the number of taxi drivers
remains stagnant at 23.000.
Uber is not happy with the mayor’s
plans which it sees as ‘protectionism’ and
is lobbying hard against a cap on private
hire. It also states that a further growth in
the numbers is needed, so that it can
launch its UberPool shared-cab service in
London. Interestingly enough: none of the
earlier shared-cab services which were
introduced in the British capital have ever
worked.
wf
PHOTO: Antwerp-Tax, Taxi Stockholm
PHOTO: Share NL
An elephant has marched into the
field of passenger transport shaking
up the earth, the yield and
how people have ploughed and harvested
the field for a long time. The likes of Uber
have replaced callcentres by algorithms,
have revived trust through reputation systems
and online payments and have effectively
made several public efforts to
improve the quality of personal transport
irrelevant, although this has not yet been
realized everywhere.
Thus far I am telling you nothing new,
it is clear that many of the existing players
have failed to recognize the approaching
elephant but now, app technology is adopted
rapidly. What I am worried about is the
deep focus on ‘the elephant in the room’ by
the existing players, heavily emphasizing
all the illegal activities of the elephant and
failing to realize that the elephant is not
unique to the world of passenger transport
but part of a much broader shake up
instead.
Having co-founded shareNL, the Dutch
network and knowledge organization for
the collaborative economy and sharing
economy, I have the privilege to work with
companies from many different industries.
It keeps surprising me to see how people
can love the elephant in another conference
room, and look at the elephant in their own
market as completely different. I can assure
you, there are similar elephants marching
into banks, hospitals, universities, utilities,
hotels and many more.
Across sectors people are getting ‘the
extra option:’ instead of buying a drill from
a store they can borrow one from a neighbour,
instead of staying at a hotel people can
chose to stay at another individual’s place,
instead of buying energy from a utility we
can now choose
to buy directly
from a producer.
I could continue
this for a few
more pages but
you get the point.
Consumers are
rapidly becoming
more independent
from traditional institutions and more
dependent on one another, enabled by technology
and two-sided market places, safeguarded
by trust mechanisms and made
efficient by algorithms. As a consequence
anyone can instantly become a hotelier,
banker, caretaker, teacher, etc. and yes a
personal driver to.
»I would strongly
recommend to turn
off your legal/illegal
pair of glasses«
I would strongly recommend to turn off
your legal/illegal pair of glasses, because
professions defined and regulated in past
centuries are fundamentally changing.
Therefore the real value is in focusing on
what passenger transport, or personal
mobility, will look like five years from now
and how your brand fits in the picture. Dare
to think outside of the box, what else can
a driver deliver except the driving? I
learned at the TAXIintell conference how
drivers can act as a city’s business card but
also as psychologists.
Dive deeply in
consumer needs
and do not forget
one thing: You have
been a two-sided
marketplace for a
very long time, and
while you might be
a bit behind on the
consumer side when it comes to providing
a service of constant quality, you are probably
ahead on the provider (driver) side of
the marketplace. This is crucial, as only
those who take good care of both sides of
the market will define how the field of passenger
transport will be ploughed over in
the next decades. Pieter van de Glind
24
TAXI JUNE / 2015
25