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GPS
GPS is a wonderful technology for managing a taxi company, but unfortunately, many
vendors of dispatch solutions fail to properly implement this feature. It is easy
to claim that a system is GPS compliant, but much more difficult to use GPS in an
efficient and flexible way.
At first GPS glance, GPS appears a very simple and straightforward application.
However, for taxi dispatch purposes, there are important differences in design and
implementation that can have a huge impact on your taxi operation.
Not all GPS solutions are created equally!
GPS Map
Trip Matching
GPS can be used to find the closest vehicle for a passenger, or reversely,
the closest passenger for a taxicab. The perspective depends on what is the scarce
commodity at any given time, customers or taxicabs.
Trip Location
Even without GPS, the mapping function provides an overview where active
Trips are located, as well as Vehicles by Zones. If Trip destinations are known,
Vehicles can be placed on the maps based on the Destination Address.
GPS Parameters
Depending on the radio system used, GPS Locations can be intercepted based on generic
parameters like Time and Distance traveled, Dispatch Status like Book-In or Job
Clear, Geofence Events like exiting a Zone, as well as manual polling.
Compressed GPS
Efficient GPS should be compressed in order to reduce the communications
costs or to avoid overloading the radio channels. Many vendors only support the
GPRMC format, which is very wasteful and dramatically reduces your ability to receive
timely GPS updates.
Status-Sensitive GPS
GPS should be status sensitive. It very important to know the vehicle location
when a status transition takes place, like meteron, meteroff, trip accept, etc.
Updates solely dictated by elapsed time are of limited value in the taxi trade.
Polygon Zone Maps in Mobile Unit
The mobile unit should have the polygon zone maps programmed in local memory.
This is needed to automatically detect when a vehicle is crossing a zone boundary.
Simple way-points, and circular geo-fences are not suitable for the complexity of
taxi dispatch.
GPS Distance in Trip Offer
In the Piccolo implementation, trip offers include a distance indicator
for the benefit of the driver:
[Trip Offer Zone C 4.6 miles].
Mobile Digital Maps and Voice Navigation
To get the full benefit of GPS, the mobile client should include digital
maps with voice navigation.
Measure GPS Trip Distance
Our implementation of GPS includes the ability to measure the GPS distance
of all trips, whether dispatched or flag trips.
Automatic GPS On Site
A good mobile client should automatically determine when the vehicle has
arrived on site, waiting for the passenger to come out of his house. This is important
for effective management of Driver No Trips (Driver Trip Cancellations). Before
a cancellation is approved, you want to ensure that the vehicle has first arrived
at the customer site. Otherwise, you are exposed to driver cheating.
GPS Trip Sheets
GPS can be used to automatically create driver trip sheets, including pickup
and dropoff addresses. This approach applies to both dispatched trips and flag trips.
GPS: The Bottom Line
GPS is often implemented in a suboptimal fashion, denying taxi companies
the full benefits of this technology. PiccoloTaxi supports a wide range of GPS options to help you eliminate cheating, improve customer service and make more money during
busy times! Make sure your dispatch system can meet all important GPS criteria! |