A SMALL Irish company has been granted a patent for a new type of system that will allow customers to order taxis by text, writes Ciara O'Brien.
The TextaTaxi service is the brainchild of Text One Group, a small firm based in Inishowen, Co Donegal, which specialises in database, SMS delivery and application development.
The new system will enable travellers to text their location, destination and time of travel to a single number, and receive booking confirmation - all via SMS.
"The patent covers all aspects of texting a taxi and delivering bookings via the software in the database," says Lawrence Kendall, chief executive of Text One Group. "It covers six or seven different aspects of the system, which is a dispatch system that sits on a PC in a taxi dispatcher's office. It uses one number globally."
The idea was born from a conversation in a pub, originally designed as a more convenient way for those who are hard of hearing or speech impaired to order a taxi.
It has been developed further and has now expanded within Ireland to include 43 taxi firms and thousands of drivers all over the country, according to Kendall.
Each taxi firm pays a fee for a keyword, such as Dublin, and any bookings that come in for taxis with that keyword will be given to the taxi firm.
The service has also taken on new significance for those with concerns over the security of lone passengers.
Passengers who use the service will be sent full details of the make, model and colour of the taxi, along with driver details, making the journey traceable.
For corporate accounts the company is developing an audit trail to allow large firms to keep a close watch on their taxi expenses.
"The audit trail is collated and you get a statement at the end of each month," he said. "You have a perfect audit trail as to date, time, who it was, where they went."
As a further incentive, TextaTaxi has its own rewards system, which allows registered customers to earn "text miles" for every journey they book, which they can swap for rewards ranging from mobile top-ups to weekends away, laptops and music players. The company is in talks with a number of firms to help supply these rewards.
Meanwhile, Text One is already looking to expand the TextaTaxi service overseas. The patents for the UK and US are in the works, and there are plans to take the system to China, although there has been no decision taken to apply for a patent in that region yet.
The company is also planning to develop the service further so that potential customers can get gifts and flowers delivered with a single text.
