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Technology for the Taxi and Private Hire Market in London
Edward Pode
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Summary
• The presentation details the current situation in the taxi/minicab industry, with a focus on London (page 3)
• It sets out TfL’s stance on e-hailing applications and look at the major ‘Apps’ currently dominating the market (page 6).
• The basic principles and practical upshots of mobile tracking technologies are explained (page x)
• Finally I list potential next steps and individuals who will be able to further the project (page 31)
• An appendix provides further reading and a glossary of key terms (page 33)
• I have just graduated from the University of Nottingham. If you would be interested in my working for you please get in touch via [email protected]
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Contents
• The London Taxi & Private Hire Market
• Apps
• The Technology
• Next Steps
• Appendixes
Taxis (or ‘hackney carriages’) - noun are available for immediate hire and can be hailed in the street (known as ‘plying for hire’). Taxis can also accept pre-bookings.
Private Hire Vehicles (PHVs) (sometimes known as ‘minicabs’) - noun must be pre-booked and cannot use taxi ranks. It is illegal for PHVs to ply for hire.
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TaxisAlso known as “Hackney
Carriages” or “black cabs”22,300 in number LTPH is a part of TfL, and is
the licensing and regulatory authority for both Taxis and
PHVs in all 33 local authorities / Boroughs
Minicabs Chauffeur/ Executive cars
Taxi Drivers
Fleet owners
PHVDrivers
PHV Operators
Passengers
Under London Taxi & Private Hire
(LTPH) regulation
Special purpose vehicles
Private Hire vehicles (PHVs)49,300Radio circuits
Taxi Driver Associations
PHV TradeAssociations
Taxi Manufacturers
Police & other agencies
Boroughs
Taxi apps
Passengers Groups
The London Taxi & Private Hire Market
Source: John Mason, Director, London Taxi and Private Hire and DfT
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The London Taxi & Private Hire Market- Statistics
• The UK market has an estimated value of £9 billion.
• Approximately 1/3 of all taxis and private hire vehicles across England & Wales are in London
• The capital had 24,800 taxi drivers and 22,200 taxis
• Plus 55,800 Private Hire (PH) drivers; 49,300 PH vehicles and 2,600 operator licenses in 2013
• There are estimated to be approximately 185,000 -200,000 taxi passenger carrying taxi journeys per day with a similar number of private hire journeys
• The average taxi fare is almost £13.00 per journey and an average journey length of about 3 miles.
• Although all taxis can carry five passengers and some can hold six, there are one or two passengers in a typical hiring
Sources: Ibisworld, TfL and DfT
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Contents
• The London Taxi & Private Hire Market
• Apps
• The Technology
• Next Steps
• Appendixes
App - noun Computers, Informal. An application, typically a small, specialized program downloaded onto a mobile device
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Apps- TfL’s Approach
• Evidence was emerging that ‘stop, start’ driving was contributing to poor air quality
• As part of the Mayor's Air Quality Strategy (December 2010) it was stated that:
• “The Mayor will also support the development of new technologies which encourage taxi sharing and enable electronic hailing”.
• E-hailing provides the opportunity for taxi drivers to maximise their earning potential by placing passengers with them quicker meaning they spent less time driving aimlessly in search of new passengers .
• TfL has adopted a “hands off”, a light touch regulatory approach to the application of electronic hailing and booking
• They do not seek to duplicate existing laws (i.e. Card processing regulations, mobile phone use in vehicles)
• They have stated that they want to allow the quality of the product and service provided to passengers to dictate market.
• Many different companies have now entering into the London market offering a varying of “apps” to this end
Source: TfL
TfL have a “light touch” approach to apps
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Apps- How do they work
Run the app and locate a service
Download an app
Book a Taxi/Limo
Payment via text, email or other
payment processing devises
Split by function:
• Apps that provide Directory functionality
• Apps that make bookings with dispatch companies
• Apps that make bookings directly with a driver
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Apps- The Business Model
• The exact business model varies from app to app as you will see below , but the main approach sees both driver (whether of a private-hire vehicle or licensed taxi) and passenger download a app to their smartphone.
• It uses the phone's in-built GPS and mapping to put the two together quickly and preregistered credit card details make payment easier.
• No specialist equipment or subscription is required. The driver benefits from less time searching for a fare, while the passenger gets a cab at his door without having to pick up the phone or go out on to the street.
• As of 2012 Hailo and Get Taxi seemed to be emerging as the leading e-hailing apps on the market. This was ascribed to good quality products and excellent ratings/reviews from users, according to TfL.
Source: GetTaxi and TfL
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Apps- The TfL Website
Four apps are listed on the TfL websiteCabwise, ComCab, Hailo and Get Taxi.
Plus the offer “if you have a taxi or minicab booking app you'd like us to consider for our apps list, please contact [email protected]
Source: TfL
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Apps-Cabwise
• Cabwise is TfL own directory based iPhone and android app• You click 'find a cab', enter the location or geo-locate• Call a number from the list of minicabs or black cabs suggested
Cabwise is unsophisticated and not hugely popular app, but it might make a great front end for a more sophisticated location based service if you could get TfL to cooperate
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Apps-ComCab
• The Comcab app (TaxiApp) is produced by Whaapp Limited, for Computer Cabs part of CityFleet Networks Limited, itself part of ComfortDelGro, the worlds second largest transport company.
• It is a relatively new app only currently available for the iPhone although there are planned Versions for the Android, Blackberry and Windows Phone
• In the UK CityFleet operates car, taxi and coach services across London, Liverpool, Birmingham and Edinburgh, as well as in Aberdeen, with over 5,000 vehicles nationwide.
• There is no pre-registration required you can use the app to book a taxi and make advance bookings. You can also track the location of your taxi as it makes its way to pick you up.
Whaap may be worth a second look
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Apps- Hailo
• A Hailo hail according to the publicity material is accepted around the world every four seconds from Hailo’s global network of tens of thousands of drivers and hundreds of thousands of passengers.
• Hailo is available in New York, London, Dublin, Toronto, Chicago, Boston and Madrid - and coming next to Tokyo, Washington DC, and Barcelona. Hailo has carried millions of passengers and grown to annualized sales of over $100M. In Britain, It is estimated to be the biggest player in Britain with roughly 9,000 drivers registered in the capital
• Founded by three taxi drivers and three internet entrepreneurs, Hailo has raised over $50M from investors including Union Square Ventures, Accel Partners, Wellington Partners, Atomico Ventures and Sir Richard Branson.
• The company’s business model works by taking a 10% commission on cab fares booked through the app. In New York the business model will work differently, charging customers $1.50 each time they book a taxi using Hailo.
• The algorithms for the matching, dispatching, and journey tracking were written by Hailo’s own developers; the back end is Java-based and runs on AWS. The data store is Cassandra. Hailo also uses real-time analytics from another London start-up, Acunu, to get a view of where all cabs are at any moment in time, whether they’re carrying passengers, etc.; the Acunu software sits on top of a Cassandra database.
Acunu has a very interesting offering.
For a video on Hailo, click here. Their description is very like your idea
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Apps-Get Taxi
Customer Version:
• Uses GPS to locate user with option to manually input address, with a list of local landmarks/popular places, for greater accuracy.
• ‘smart radar’ shows available taxi’s in the area• Pay by cash or card, the latter through the
device itself.• Track the taxi as it approaches. Driver
information displayed with option to call them if you have a question. If paying by card you can ‘auto tip’.
Driver Customers:
• No monthly charges, flat fees depending what price band the fare is in (free up to £5 journeys) all weekend journeys uncharged.
• Operates through a dedicated device rather than smartphone app.
• Get Taxi takes money directly from customers then pays out to drivers on a weekly basis.
• Website provides a tutorial and there is a training session for new drivers
From the potential customers point of view the website and app are attractive.
SuperCabby as a driver, however, wrote a devastating review of the business model,
that is well worth reading.
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Apps- Other Apps highlighted by TfL
• London minicab firm Addison Lee has reported that a quarter of all its bookings come via its iPhone app.
• 45,000 bookings a week are made using the free app, which has been downloaded more than 350,000 times, according to Addison Lee. In the first ten months of the year, the app has already taken £33 million, and is on track to take more than £50 million by the end of 2012.
• The app works by locating customers using the GPS system in their smartphones. This means that customers do not need to type in their pick-up address; they can simply click the 'Find my location' button.
• Addison Lee's fleet of 3,500 minicabs and 250 “VIP chauffeur cars” is managed by a computerised Auto Allocator that tracks all of its vehicles, constantly calculating the most efficient solution to pick up each passenger across the entire fleet. The company claims to offer an average pick-up time of four minutes in Central London.
• Passengers are sent an SMS text message informing them when their car is on its way and again when it is waiting outside. These texts include the driver's mobile number and vehicle registration, so customers can identify their car safely and contact the driver directly should they need to.
• As well as the iPhone app, Addison Lee has also created Windows Phone, Android, Nokia and BlackBerry apps and is currently assessing the potential of new technologies such as HTML5 and NFC.
Source: CIO
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Apps- Other Apps highlighted by TfL
BlackCab Now actually uses the Taxi Now app at its core. The driver terms make interesting reading, see here. I rather like this short video on how it works.
Described as a price comparison site in this video, much like Mr Hunter’s proposal. Open to applications by fleets with 30+ cars or by individual drivers
Review tend to stress it cheapness, including the discounted service to Heathrow. TLCtaxi, aka @TweetaLondonCab, is a collective of licensed London Taxi Drivers which is primarily aimed at pre-booked journey. They say they tweet but they do not seem to have done a whole lot.
The lighting rod of the sector has attracted mixed publicity. It's a darling of Silicon Valley investors and has attracted funding from Goldman Sachs, Menlo Ventures and Jeff Bezos. Unlike Hailo and other black-cab-style apps, it matches customers with private hire, limousine-like cars and 4x4s rather than existing networks of licensed cabs. To see more watch this video.
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Apps- Others
Cruchbase list 103 sites tagged with taxi. As IATR put it “Right now, it’s the Wild West out there, with private equity backed start-ups and established industry companies alike
scrambling to have the next app to hit it big and revolutionize for-hire transport internationally”. It would need a second project to identify those with the best prospects.
Source: cruchbase
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Apps- If I was spending my money
• If I was spending my money, I might have a look at Cab My Taxi
• Salford-based engineer Vladica Mitrovic has spent two years setting up Cab My Taxi in Manchester. Unlike Hailo, which only works with licensed cabs, Cab My Taxi gives the option of hailing a licensed cab or being offered three quotes for a minicab.
• "The feedback we've had already is amazing, and ours is only app we are aware of that offers Hackney carriages and private hire services in one place," says Mitrovic.
• The website sets out the business model as follows. We are a family run business, not backed by Venture Capital aiming to push the profits sky high; our charges are designed to recover the cost of the service and ensure the investment in further development of our hi tech communication channel.
• CAB my taxi service is free for private hire taxi operators. The 50p fee paid by customers by reverse SMS charge is waived during the launch.
• For Hackney cab drivers they work to the following scheme
Source: cabmytaxi.com/
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Apps- Legal Issues
• A review by Professor Matthew W. Daus, President of IATR and a Partner & the Chairman of the Transportation Practice Group at Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf, LLP in New York raised the following question
• What is the distinctions between a taxicab and limousine in post-smartphone app world? Is an on-demand electronic street hail a prearranged service? Most jurisdictions have yet to answer these questions.
• The use of the terms “taxi” or “cab” adjacent to an app does not mean vehicles and drivers dispatched by the app are licensed or meets the definition of a taxi. This creates consumer confusion and safety concerns.
• Apps could allow the driver to accept or decline potential dispatches. Thus, there is potential for drivers to take advantage of the app to discriminate against consumers; offering service to some, and rejecting others.
• Some apps have been criticized for “demand” or “surge” pricing at the time of national disaster. Uber appears to have got into trouble for htis
Source: iru.org
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Apps- The view from the front and back seat
• Doug Clarke, cabbie from Guildford
• "I don't have a smartphone and much prefer working off the street and looking at who I'm picking before I let them get in my cab. With Hailo you just don't know who is going to come out of a building. It could be a drunk or it could be something worse. There's more of a risk in it for the driver.“
• Seamus Balfe, cabbie from West London
• "I got a job within two or three minutes of signing up and now I can get four of five extra jobs a day. Some people say cabbies are miserable gits, and I think they can be, but I think Hailo works to sort the cheerful ones who want to try new technology and the older chaps who don't want to change.“ But he picks up fewer Hailo passengers now than he did several months ago and often has to travel further to collect them. "I still prefer to pick someone off the street because it is instant and I don't have to travel to get to them."
• Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association
• "For the first time in years we have a way to fight back against the mini cab firms like Addison Lee who have a massively unfair advantage over us with cheaper vehicles, less regulation and cheaper labour. Go and ask any cabbie using Hailo and they'll tell you, one reason they do it is because they enjoy seeing Addison Lee taking a kicking.“
• Toby Mildon, Hailo customer
• "I'm in a wheelchair and very often taxis simply drive past me. Hailo lets me hail a cab from somewhere warm without facing discrimination because my wheelchair isn't obvious and if there is a problem the driver is traceable."
Source: The Independent
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Apps- TfL’s Conclusions
• Applications are good for taxi trade in London and passengers in general
• Despite high level of take up and use no evidence of envisaged problems such as safety issues using smart phones
• Passengers embracing and welcoming technology, haven’t gone back to old way of street hails / cash payment albeit with some issues
• Robust driver validation process is essential
• Reducing complaints and lost property processing costs for TfL
• TfL want engagement with developers at early stage vital
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Contents
• The London Taxi & Private Hire Market
• Apps
• The Technology
• Next Steps
• Appendixes
Technology - noun The application of science, especially to industrial or commercial objectives.
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Technology- There is no problem with the devices
(GNSS: Global Navigation Satellite System)
• Shipments of GNSS-enabled devices will continue to grow, accompanied by a reduction in device prices. These will include smartphones, PDAs and mobile handsets. This growth is equivalent to a CAGR of 11% over the next decade
• By 2020, the percentage of all mobile devices in use that include GNSS capability is forecast to reach 67%. This growth is expected to slow down after 2020 as the markets in most regions of the world reach saturation. In the London market this saturation point is likely to be reached earlier.
Source: GNSS Asia
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Technology- There is no problem with the devices
Source: GNSS Asia Note: Nokia’s handset business has now been sold to Microsoft
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Technology- There is no great problem with coverage
Source: Opensignal.com
London is generally excellent for mobile signal, problems may come when rolling out the project more widely in the UK or abroad due to reduced coverage
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Technology- Location Overview
Cell tower triangulation provides generalized location results with only roughly 200 - 1000 meter accuracy and it is demanding on resources as shown about; but it serves as a coverage fall-back when neither GPS nor Wi-Fi is available.
Source: STL Partners and see the glossary for definitions of the systems
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Technology- There is no great problem with the location
Source: two papers
The Global Positioning System (GPS) has a typical outdoor positioning accuracy of up to 10-20m for civilian users (see left). Thus, it has become a viable method for civilian to carry out coarse positioning. However, it has its shortcomings; it is available only outdoors with a clear view of the sky. Tall building like those in London will block the signal but may work for cars in the middle of the road (see below).
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Technology- The Answer
• Wi-Fi positioning performs best where GPS is weakest, in urban areas and indoors,
• Therefore it is desirable to combine both GPS and Wi-Fi for ubiquitous positioning in one device.
• Technology providers such as Skyhook claim that they are able to do this quickly, accurately and without battery drain.
• In January 2008, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that both the iPhone and iPod Touch would use Skyhook's WPS as the primary location engine for Google Maps and other applications
• If you still want to go with triangulation you might want to have a look at a new technique called Advanced Forward Link Trilateration (AFLT) which is the most accurate method at the present time. However there are privacy concerns surrounding this.
SKYHOOK GPS A-GPS
Accuracy 10 meters 10 meters 30 meters
Availability 99.8% 80.0% 95%
Time-To-First-Fix 1 sec 65 sec 30 sec
Source: Skyhook
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Technology- Working with the Networks
• There may be an excellent opportunity for you to work with one of the networks.
• EE, Telefonica UK (O2) and Vodafone UK, which between them, they represent over 80% of UK mobile customers, have recently entered into a joint venture. Weve was formed to create and accelerate the development of mobile marketing and wallet services in the UK.
• EE have also been doing side deal with Ipsos Mori o analyse anonymised mobile phone usage data from the telco, which has 27 million customers, and offer insights to businesses and local authorities.
• Telefónica Digital (@tefdigital) was formed in September 2011 to lead this drive and seize new opportunities for Telefónica in the digital world. The unit expects to create annual revenues of approximately €5bn for Telefónica by 2015 with an annual revenue growth rate of 20%, as well as driving considerable additional benefits to Telefónica operations.
• EE• giffgaff• O2• TalkTalk
• Tesco Mobile
• Three• Virgin Mobile• Vodafone
All of the networks are open for business. They want to create revenue from the data they hold.
Source: Weve, Information Age and Telefónica
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Contents
• The London Taxi & Private Hire Market
• Apps
• The Technology
• Next Steps
• Appendixes
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Routes to Market
• Buy an app • Licence a foreign / white label app
• Pursue the most lucrative taxi contracts those with the London Councils and Hospitals
• Explore working with the radio circuits
• Looking more widely at backing a good app developer such as Rarebreeddigital or pursue the “big data” produced by the mobile phones looks the most attractive options to me
This image, showing taxi driver route choices through central London (brightness of road indicates higher usage), highlights the impact of each driver choosing their route based on
information available to them from personal experience, information system
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People To Talk To
Name Position Reason Contact Details
Sean J. Barbeau Center for Urban Transportation ResearchUniversity of South Florida
Location and Transport expert with lots of interesting patents you could work with
Martha Bennett Analyst at Forrester Big Data expert working with Application Development & Delivery Professionals likely to charge
Via website or phone020 7323 7730
James M Cooper Taxi Research Partners, Edinburgh Napier University
Academic expert on Taxis may charge
[email protected] 455 2805
Tim Davis Associate STL Partners
Wrote good paper on making money in the sector see further reading
John Mason Director, London Taxi and Private Hire, TfL
The key man at TfL 0845 3007000 Switchboard [email protected]
David Sear CEO at Weve Data man for the three largest phone companies
020 3667 2000Switchbaord
SuperCabby Taxi Driver and Blogger Practical experience of apps Leave a message via his blog or contact him on twitter @SuperCabby
Pete Warden CTO of Jetpac Inc Expert on location and big data but already working with serial entrepreneur.
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Contents
• The London Taxi & Private Hire Market
• Apps
• The Technology
• Next Steps
• Appendixes
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Sources A-L
• ABI Research - Location Based Services
• Accurate Positioning of Pedestrians in Mixed Indoor/Outdoor Settings
• AppBooker
• Are Mobile Taxi Apps Going After a Big Enough Market?
• Brazil’s Easy Taxi raises $15M to become e-hailing front-runner in emerging markets
• E-Hailing Yellow Cabs Is the New Black … Or Is It?
• Flywheel Raises $14.8M to Make 'E-Hailing' Taxis Mainstream
• Addison Lee from cost centre to revenue generator
• Got an iPhone or 3G iPad? Apple is recording your moves
• GPS Business News
• Hailo to Big Data
• Location-Aware Information Systems Laboratory at the University of South Florida
• Location Based Services for Mobiles: Technologies and Standards
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Sources M-Z
• Making Money From Location Insights
• Minuscule percentage of New Yorkers using taxi ‘e-hail’ app
• Navizon Global Positioning System
• Nokia Mobile Location Services
• Pedestrian Position Tracker
• Positional Accuracy of Assisted GPS Data from High-Sensitivity GPS-enabled Mobile Phones
• Say Hailo To Big Data
• Skyhook promises constant mobile location without battery drain
• Social media use amongst taxi and private hire drivers and customers
• Taxi Fares and Tariff Consultation2013
• The Anderson Shelter
• Wheely, Drivr, Uber or Addison Lee?
• Where is the Money in Location-based Services?
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Glossary
• Wardriving is the act of searching for Wi-Fi wireless networks by a person in a moving vehicle, using a portable computer, smartphone or personal digital assistant (PDA).
• GNSS Global Navigation Satellite System
• A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) What is an FPGA?
• The field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is a semiconductor device that can be programmed after manufacturing.
• International Association of Transportation Regulators (IATR)
• www.iatr.org/
• http://birds-eye.net/definition/acronym/?id=1165798855
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A Final Thought
If you have any further questions please contact me on 07790075311 or via email at
