Citiranks.com is a new online taxi booking service for the Dublin area that claims to be the first of its kind in this country.
Registered users of the service can log on, find the taxi rank nearest them and then choose which car in the queue they want to come to pick them up.
The service is aimed at the business market - there is a registration fee of €200 and a charge of €3 per booking - and is designed to complement rather than replace existing corporate taxi accounts. But research by Citiranks, which has been set up by the people behind Ambassador Chauffeur Drive, found that 88 per cent of businesses had occasionally or regularly been let down by their taxi company.
"A lot of our chauffeur customers might occasionally need a taxi to take a customer to the airport or whatever," says Frank Cullen, commercial director of Citiranks.com. "This way you can see the cars at the rank and pick a Mercedes or 07 Avensis. You know what's going to turn up to your door."
While many Dublin taxi firms employ satellite tracking technology so they know the location of their cars, at peak times there is no guarantee of how long it will take for them to reach a customer premises.
In contrast, by being able to choose a waiting taxi at a nearby rank, you can be almost certain it will be with you in minutes, Mr Cullen claims. The firm guarantees service within five minutes.
Drivers who sign up with Citiranks install a small electronic tag in their car. Readers at all of the main Dublin ranks pick this up and then transmit the car's location to the website.
Although there are 20,000 taxis in Dublin, only a small percentage are linked to a taxi firm and it is unattached drivers with quality cars that the service is looking to sign up.
Mr Cullen says that drivers are attracted by the fact that Citiranks does not seek exclusivity and provides work for drivers at the very time that they are waiting for it.
To date, the firm has invested more than €150,000 in the service and has plans to franchise the service to other cities around the globe.
