Snow! & The Positive And Negatives Of A Computer-Based Dispatching System

Six Inches Plus Snow in Seattle 

My cab YC 1092 lies buried in deep snow, a result of a furious, quick moving snowstorm coming in Friday night and early Saturday morning, inundating the city with 6-12 inches depending upon your location.  In Chinatown, my personal car had a measurable 10 inches accumulated upon the rooftop. Driving out to the parked cab, I decided it far wiser to do anything but drive a cab, the roads remaining hazardous, and what I saw exhibited by fellow Seattle drivers, scaring me to "No, I won't do this."  Tomorrow might be better so I'll try again, passengers needing cabs regardless of weather and road conditions.  I did see a small snowman.  Hey Frosty, where ya going with that shovel in your hand?

A Story History of Local Taxi Dispatching 

Given my over three-decade involvement in the taxi industry, it has provided me a literal "birds-eye-view" of how taxis are dispatched to their customers.  At least in relation to this subject, I have the idiomatic "eyes of a hawk" and the "wisdom of an owl," having taken thousands upon thousands of dispatched fares.  It is has been a long study, and since my very income depends upon my overall knowledge, I've paid great attention to this ongoing tutorial in receiving and accepting fares, what's good, what's bad and what is merely indifferent.  My motive for this brief overview is my most recent professional interaction with a foreign callcenter working with a type of client totally new to them: a large urban American taxicab fleet in a completely unfamiliar city.  But before examining that situation and taxi computer dispatching in general, I think an introduction of the now past world of voice-based dispatch would be especially helpful to those new to this perhaps arcane subject. The industrial world comprising taxi may seem simple to some though clearly to those long associated it isn't, instead a complexity confounding to many, a conundrum never solved but in moments, enjoyed.

If voice dispatching was a symphony, its composition certainly more Igor Stravinsky than Wolfgang Mozart, more atonal than melodic though the harmony achieved between dispatcher and cabbie sometimes beautiful, a tone poem combining addressing and purpose.  And the veteran dispatcher, always a retired cabbie, was truly a fierce yet kind conductor, wielding a supreme power over your personal destiny.  One sour note, and the dispatcher knew, amending error with a flick of his verbal baton.  Like a real symphony, every player knew their role, and at its best, indeed it was harmonious---dispatcher, cabbie, passenger reaching an apogee of efficient agreement.  It was beautiful, it was profitable when everyone, regardless of pitch, sang a taxi song in choral unison. 

Why then did it disappear, only to replaced by the siren song of technological innovation, singing to the greed synonymous with the taxi industry, saying "no salaries, little overhead, no heath insurance;" only blinking lights lighting up the interior of the cab.  Yes, there was the allure of a new kind of efficiency, and certainly with PSD/Yellow's new MTI system, you remove some trouble, the paperless account system wonderful, eliminating the paper vouchers, and as in the old voice days, not having to write down a series of numbers and names and addresses yelled at you while you're flying down the freeway at 70 MPH.

The very best element of voice was the keeping track of the bells (calls), assuring the customer was served in a timely manner.  The worse of computer dispatching, especially when utilizing a taxi inexperienced callcenter based thousands of miles away, is that calls get lost, which means too often a very tardy response time, along with the foul temptation chosen by too many cabbies of ignoring the waiting passenger altogether, resulting in unnecessary pain and suffering.   

Admittedly, these kinds of issues not the fault of the computer dispatch system itself, only of approach and managing style, the human element slowing down the machine but if the computer could respond to verbal messaging, the customer telling the computer "I need a cab at 11111 8the Avenue Northwest in 30 minutes," and instantly saved and relayed correctly, I think we would see a many times improvement in service, eliminating many mistakes. The taxi-app now in usage in many ways achieves this end, which I suppose could or will lead to the kind of system I'm suggesting.

I say all this because its obvious there is no going back to voice dispatching, the computer our new workable model taking us into the future.  If we can now only eliminate human error, both callcenter operator and cabbie, our taxi world will indeed run smoothy propelled by our electronic friend.  If only us humans would get out of the way, our world will be a New Heaven and the Computer our Benevolent Master.  Hail the New Authority! Hail the Taxi Caesar! all roads leading to our New Rome!