Business Idea: Flat Rate Taxi
Posted by admin in General
Wouldn't it be nice if every time you got into a cab you knew exactly what it would cost? You wouldn't have to watch the meter wondering how high it would go or wonder if the driver might be taking a more circuitous route to your destination to pad the fare. And yet I don't know of any taxi service anywhere that offers this.
In many major cities you will find flat rate taxi fares from the airport out to certain "zones"—for example, you can get a flat rate cab from midway Airport to any downtown Chicago destination. But what if a taxi service offered a flat rate between any two points? You hop in, tell 'em your destination, and they immediately tell you the cost. Some people would say this is cumbersome for the driver, but my Flat Rate Taxi company would have a GPS system installed in every car, so the driver would know immediately how far away the destination is and could attach a price to it. As a consumer you could immediately decide if you wanted to pay it or find some other mode of transport.
I was in Miami once and our driver got completely lost and then tried to charge us $75 for the ride. We had to argue for 15 minutes to agree on a compromise amount. With Flat Rate Taxi, such incidences would be a thing of the past.
Is this a good idea? Are there taxi services that already offer this? (I couldn't find any on a pefunctory search engine search.)
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Great idea, but I doubt there’s a true taxi service in the world that does this.
The closest thing I could think of would be an airport limo service.
Gidday mate,
A businessman I know set up this business in Auckland New Zealand. The company was called Hop-a-cab and the cars were all Green with frogs on them. They had a number of differences to a regular cab including the GPS system which gave exact prices for destinations. This businessman owns car yards and rental cars companies so it was the perfect add on for him.
After 6 months however, he closed it down. The reason was he was unable to keep licenced drivers to work in these vehicles… They prefered to work under the ordinary meter system because they made more money.
Washington DC has a map of zones in every cab with rates set by the taxi commission and if you can deal with a map without much detail and know where you are going you can figure out exactly what your fare will cost in advance. And you have the comfort of knowing that even if the cabbie goes “the long way” it won’t cost you any extra.
And last I heard, Breckenridge, Colorado has true flat rate pricing, but that flat rate is $25, which is a very expensive ride which pretty much eliminates using it for anywhere close.
Personally, I prefer the zones.
i think it’s a good idea, but it’s only suitable for developed countries. this is because in those cuntries, the traffic condition is more likely to be predicted.