Tan Kin Lian's Blog: Book a taxi with TABS

Friday, February 24, 2012

Book a taxi with TABS - for customers

5 comments:

testone said...: I have downloaded it and tried as both a taxi driver and a passenger.

My opinion is that this is a good system and reduce the need for the middleman (that Glc whom collects the supernormal profit from both customers and drivers and has no incentive to change.)

I hope LTA should support this low cost but workable solution especially for smaller taxi companies that do not have the funds to invest in a comfortcab like satellite system.

Some improvements to consider:
One, although i know you will not abuse the info collected but there is nothing in the app to state this Eg. Whether my name and number will be sold to telemarketers, my whereabouts history to PI firm. You will need to put in a disclosure policy in the register page. Specifically what info is stored, how long it is stored, whether i can clear them and how you will use the info collected. I did the honorable thing by disabling the taxi account after testing but i was not able to do the same for the customer account.

Two, I realise that anyone can register for a taxi account or a fake customer account. Those with criminal intention may masquerade as taxi driver and turn up especially when the customer is in a remote area. I do not believe in the sporean way of creating paperworks like taxi drivers sending application or customer sending in Nric or passport for registration. You can use the simple amazon eBay seller reputation model first so that taxi driver can pick up those with highest rating. Customer can choose to share his location, phone only with those taxi driver with certain ratings when he searches for his taxi. As the model is too simple and is prone to abuse, you can upgrade this model (once you have sufficient signups and transaction volume) to a new rating system that ranks you higher for recent transactions and lower for past transactions, eg. USA credit score model. Why? A phone number may be owned by someone else in future, likewise a taxi can be driven by someone else. A rating system will also encourage a close loop back to your system.

Three. Stores a list of favorites and hated drivers. In my experience, I enjoyed my ride with some very good and courteous drivers. So I will like to continue to do business with them by giving them my booking first if they are in the vicinity or let them earn a higher advance booking fee if possible. Once i had given a 10 dollar tip to a taxi driver (i dunno why i did it. No exceptional service. I was just happy that day) who later did not even bother to take my luggage out of the boot for me. You sure bet I don't want to see him again.

Four. Personal history of all successful booking. I want to store taxi number, location, destination or cost to make it easy for me to file my expense or track lost items.

Five. No need to store all road names but I do not want to always reenter the four or five pairs of locations/destinations.; February 24, 2012 11:30 PM
Tan Kin Lian said...: @Testone.

Thanks for your feedback. We are aware of these risks. Here are the measures that will be taken to minimise the risk:

a) A Term of Service policy has already been put up. This also covers confidentiality of data. See http://www.tabs.sg/ToS.aspx

b) A registered taxi driver is now required to confirm that they are a real taxi driver. Our staff will call the taxi driver to ask for verification (e.g. fax the taxi certificate). Only real taxi drivers will be allowed to use the system.

c) We have provision to register complaints against taxi drivers and customers, e.g. "no show" and can ban them from using the system in the future.

Additional security measures will be introduced in due course. Right now, we want to make it easy for people to try and like the idea.

Please send an email to kinlian@gmnail.com. I want to talk to you and ask if you can help to promote TABS.; February 25, 2012 9:16 AM
Tan Kin Lian said...: @Testone.
You find this system to be "too simple" because you are likely to be a hi-tech person. Most of the people that I showed the system to, find it not that easy. So, I have to cater to them and simplify it further.

Anyway, we will be modify the system based on experience .. and your feedback is useful.; February 25, 2012 9:21 AM
Tan Kin Lian said...: @Testone. Regarding security, this system is actually better than the "real life situation". If someone masquerades as a taxi driver and commits a crime, there is a record of the mobile number that was used. So, it is possible to trace this person from the mobile number, unless he uses a stolen mobile phone.

In real life, a similar crime could be committed and there is no evidence, even of the mobile phone.; February 25, 2012 9:23 AM
testone said...: I am based permanently in another country. No plans to be back.

Actually no, my "simple" criticism is directed at my own proposed eBay seller reputation model.

On security and other proposals to empower the customers that I had earlier given, it was based on my own assumption of a light-touch middleman and a different business model that empowers the customer and that was the reason why we diverged in our opinions then. I only realised this just now when I saw your reply and took a look at TAB web page. Your model is closer to a traditional cab booking service but offered independently to all drivers.

I offer another two suggestions.

To help promote the app among customers,a simple idea can be to offer free taxi booking for successful referrals. Eg. A asks B to install app and gets B's customer account number from him. A keys this number in his own app. Concurrently A can do the same for C, D,etc. App lets A knows when any of his friends made and paid for his first cab booking. A can then make his free one dollar taxi booking (maybe free one dollar booking button appears now which was previously disabled). Drivers knows this is a free one dollar booking and may choose to ignore booking, but some drivers may pick A up. A does not pay any booking fee to driver but every one dollar booking credit is tracked and given to drivers to offset his future subscription. If you prefer to avoid the logistics of tracking the credits, simply just call this a zero dollar booking and no offset will be made to the subscription but still some driver will still pick A earning no booking fee than cruising empty. If A cannot find a taxi, his free booking is considered used.

To encourage drivers, TABS can invest in 10 phones and loan them for a small fee to potential new driver signups for up to one month with a high deposit so that he will not hog on the phone. Switch to a different batch of new signups every month.; February 26, 2012 7:45 PM