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- Frank Visits Adelaide Road? – The Movie.
- Coromandel cabbie blows over limit: police.
- PG Tips – Submitted.
- Is Combined a Dead Duck?
- Frank on Two Meter Taxis.
- Frank on Thinking outside The Square.
- Fleet Controller / Dispatcher: Taxi / Shuttle.
- How the taxi-medallion bubble might burst.
- Sione’s 2: Three weddings and a funeral.
- Daimler Acquires 15% of MyTaxi App for Clicking to Hail a Cab.
- Frank on Factoring.
- The Morgue – Ode to “One Term Warren”
- Frank Returns To New Zealand.
- Glasgow Taxis in £1.85m overhaul of technology.
- Taxi moguls get rich while drivers struggle.
- Anonymous – It just keeps getting worse (1).
- Anonymous – It just keeps getting worse (2)
- Anonymous – Peace is the absence of disTURBANce.
- Cab companies fight turf war.
- Thats a wrap submitted : Harvesters Guru Dies Suddenly.
- NZTA publishes guide to taxi vehicle requirements.
- Atrthur Attrill submitted – NZTA taxi user survey.
- Disabled Man Operates Taxi.
- Taxi complaints take wrong turn.
- Diane Abbott: taxi drivers refuse to pick up black passengers.
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Top Posts
- PG Tips - Submitted.
- Frank on Two Meter Taxis.
- Is Combined a Dead Duck?
- Frank on Thinking outside The Square.
- Frank Visits Adelaide Road? - The Movie.
- Anonymous - It just keeps getting worse (1).
- Frank on Factoring.
- NEW GUIDE OF TAXI FARES IN WELLINGTON: Submitted by Free Man.
- Taxi moguls get rich while drivers struggle.
- Fleet Controller / Dispatcher: Taxi / Shuttle.
- Coromandel cabbie blows over limit: police.
- How the taxi-medallion bubble might burst.
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PG Tips – Submitted.
All this palaver over employment contract terms and conditions, job description details, performance management issues, exit strategies, golden handshakjes.
Phew! Let’s just sit down and have a nice cup of tea, shall we?
Is Combined a Dead Duck?
From Donald:
Frank says Combined might be a Dead Duck. Is this really true? Sure, the harvest is very lean, the share price has been shot out of the sky, the lessees are ducking for cover and the whole operation looks like its been run over by a semi. But there’s still signs of life – if all the ruffled feathers and loud sqwuaking are anything to go by. Maybe Lynne the Golden Retriever can perform CPR and save Daffy from the barbecue?
Coromandel cabbie blows over limit: police.
‘A taxi driver behind the wheel of a cab in the Coromandel has allegedly blown over the drink driving limit, police say.
The woman was stopped at a checkpoint near Tairua before lunchtime on Thursday and blew 568 micrograms per litre of breath, Waikato Highway Patrol supervisor, Sergeant Paul Scoble said.
The limit is 400mcg.
She did not have passengers at the time but was on her way to work.
Mr Scoble said a number of drivers had complained to the checkpoint officers it was pointless setting up checkpoints during the day, but the Tairua result showed there was a genuine risk of day time drink driving.’
Read the full article here – Coromandel cabbie blows over limit: police
Posted in Business, Chatter, New Zealand, Taxi, Taxi NZ News
Tagged coromandel, drunk driver, Taxi Driver, taxis nz news
Frank on Two Meter Taxis.
You just gotta admire the resourcefulness of the average cabdriver.
Flew into Wellington this morning, walked past Green Cabs, walked past Corporate Cabs, ignored the Valley Flyer bus, fought my way past a short but very round gentleman who appeared to be touting for business, and eventually found a market-leading taxi to take me home to Lower Hutt.
The driver was a charming gentleman from Western Cambodia, very chatty but a bit erratic with his driving skills.
I had noticed a small box wired in above the rear vision mirror and assumed that was the new security camera.
But when he clipped a kerb (for the third time) the lid fell off to reveal a new Novax Leda taxi meter, installed, sealed, but not currently operating.
But the old Schmidt taxi meter down in front of the gearstick was ticking away merrily. WTF???
He said that lots of cabs had two meters these days because the “stupid bastard” taxi company shut down their dispatching system after 14 hours. To make any money after all the company and car costs he had to have the cab running more hours than that.
He said he bought the meter secondhand from somewhere called Stoned Street and had it fitted for $100 cash. Now he could would work days doing the company work, then switch off the Schmidt meter and cover it up, pull the fuses out of the dispatching system, uncover and turn on the Novax Leda, and happily work late at night doing pickups only off the city stands.
Isn’t that clever, I thought?
“But “, I asked, “and I don’t mean to burst your bubble here, but what about the Testing Station? Don’t they cause you problems?”
“ No”, he said, “just unprug it, take out when going in for a COF, put back rater.”
“But, what about the calibration on the second meter, “I asked, “ doesn’t that need to be set at the company rate and approved by the Testing Station?”
“No, Stoned Street set it for me, run a bit higher because working overtime and every one pissed anyway. Night work too good to miss”
“Ok, what about the Taxi Police?”
“No ploblem, funding run out, they get boot, nobody checking. Life better, now, make more money, now dodgies call us market leader because we got a Leda meter”
You’d have to admire this kind of creativity and resourcefulness.
It really is the kind of clever thinking that made numerous Asian countries the great economic tigers that they are today.
Frank on Thinking outside The Square.
“Taxi company shareholders need to find a better commercial model that:
- uses existing premises
- requires minimal capital to set up
- is available 24 hours a day
- takes in loads of cash
- has very low operating costs
- and generates immediate profits
- and, most importantly, runs itself with no blundering staff to interfere with things”
Forget about a Combined Finance-style money laundering operation, howabout a Commercial Laundromat instead?
Consider Napier Taxis (now Hawke’s Bay Combined Taxis) : Small cab company, not much levy revenue, limited growth prospects, overstaffed, management has tunnel vision focused on taxi technology solutions.
They are looking for growth by expanding into Hastings in order to generate more in-car turnover and attract more levy payers.
Wrong focus altogether, just another case of ‘makework’ Jobs for the Boys.
The Napier Taxis shareholders should stick to their knitting, leave Hastings alone because it’s too far away to service properly, drop the Combined call centre and do their own thing, and set up a standalone commercial operation to generate quick profits to fund the parent company.
If they hadn’t given up the previous depot site on Clive Square and buried themselves in the arse end of Onekawa they would have been on to a winner with all the foot and car traffic at the old location.
They could have:
- jacked the building up on stilts
- closed in the ground floor
- bought a whole lot of commercial washer-driers cheap from Asia
- installed a massive solarpanel on the roof (sunny Hawkes Bay)
- advertised the laundry on the back of their cars for free
The business could be taking cash 24/7 and would need hardly any staff to run it.
The whole thing would be really easy to manage – even Wayne could probably get it right. All you would need him for would be to whip down to PaknSave once a week to get bulk lots of washing powder.
Although, it might be best to get the company accountant to clear the cash weekly out of the machines.
Posted in Frank, New Zealand, Taxi, Taxi NZ News
Tagged clive square, Frank, taxis nz news
Fleet Controller / Dispatcher: Taxi / Shuttle.
Company: Korucabs
Location: Auckland City, Auckland
Type: Full time, Permanent
Listed: Thu, 12 Jan
Your reference #: 41851
Please Quote Reference Number 41851
Organised Fleet Controller / Dispatcher required
Proven dispatch experience preferred (taxi or shuttle)
Put your customer service & management skills to good use
KORUCABS are professional people movers at the forefront of business-class passenger transport. We are experiencing some exciting growth, which includes being the exclusive crew carrier to our national airline.
We are seeking an experienced dispatcher/controller who has the maturity and ability to respond to the challenges of managing customer demand with the effective coordination of our drivers and vehicles, ensuring the optimum performance and utilisation of the shift to achieve operational excellence and customer service.
Read the full listing here – Fleet Controller / Dispatcher: Taxi / Shuttle.
Posted in Taxi
Tagged fleet controller, Korucabs, operational excellence, optimum performance, passenger transport, Taxi
How the taxi-medallion bubble might burst.
‘Remember the sharp rise in taxi medallion prices over the past few years? I thought that the price was pretty justifiable back then, in October, although I did have my concerns:
Any time you see a chart like the ones above, you have to worry that there’s a bubble. Plus, there’s political risk: the mayor can print new medallions, making the existing ones worth a little less (but not a lot less, given that the income from medallions is largely fixed).
Since then, however, two things have happened. First, New York City agreed to print 2,000 new medallions — that’s a very large increase. And secondly, Charles Komanoff — you remember him — has done the hard math of what this means for congestion and taxi incomes.
The first thing to understand is that while 2,000 cars might not seem very much in the context of a city which sees 800,000 cars per day, in fact it’s huge. Taxis spend 40 times as much time driving in congested areas as private cars do, so 2,000 medallions is the equivalent of 80,000 private cars. And when you impact the amount of traffic that much in an area which is already highly congested, the effects can be enormous:’
Read the full article here - How the taxi-medallion bubble might burst.
Sione’s 2: Three weddings and a funeral.
‘At the next New Zealand film awards it will be surprising if Alert Taxis is not entered in Best Supporting Role for its involvement in the sequel to Sione’s Wedding. The cab company vehicles make a number of appearances, including conveying the heroes around town.
As a piece of product placement it is ingenious, making it look as the Alert Cabs are as ubiquitous as Yellow Cabs are in New York.’
Read the full article here - Sione’s 2: Three weddings and a funeral.
Posted in Alert Taxis NZ, New Zealand, Taxi NZ News
Tagged Alert Taxis, cab company, film awards, Sione's 2, taxis nz news, yellow cabs
Daimler Acquires 15% of MyTaxi App for Clicking to Hail a Cab.
‘Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) — Daimler AG, Germany’s third-largest carmaker, bought a 15 percent stake in MyTaxi, a provider of an application that allows people to order a taxi with a click on an iPhone or Android device.
Daimler’s Car2go unit and Xing AG founder Lars Hinrichs, together with previous MyTaxi stakeholders Deutsche Telekom AG’s T-Venture division and Germany’s KfW Group, invested a combined 10 million euros ($13 million), Sven Kuelper, chief executive officer and MyTaxi founder, said in an interview.’
Read the full article here- Daimler Acquires 15% of MyTaxi App for Clicking to Hail a Cab
