MANAGING SURGE BOOKINGS
SUMMER OF DISCONTENT NEED NOT STOP A SPRING OF OPPORTUNITY FOR CAB BUSINESSES
In the ten years I’ve been running
minicabit.com, Britain’s largest cab aggregator, now is probably the most dynamic market conditions I’ve seen in our industry. In the last quarter of 2021, we had Covid (remember that?) and outages at petrol stations around the UK. Earlier this year we had a severe storm, a London tube strike and the realisation that the cab industry’s shortage of drivers wasn’t a temporary phenomenon after the emergence from the pandemic but one that is likely to last for another one or two years.
And so with the war in Ukraine, the spike in fuel prices, global supply chain strains impacting the delivery of new cars (including EVs), it seems there’s a ‘new normal’ for our cab industry every three months! Even the industry disruption by ride hailing apps, such as Uber, that we saw pre-pandemic, seems more muted now that the shortages/worker rights/demand for drivers have combined to push these apps’ prices and wait times up - some might argue to realistic unsubsidised prices that local cab fleets can compete against.
And now there is talk of a ‘summer of discontent’, mirroring the ‘winter of discontent’ in 1979, when strikes were almost a national past time. With inflation touching double digits impacting eating and heating, and interest rates on their way up (though likely to still be below the norms of the years upto the 2008 financial crash), public sector workers in particular are facing a squeeze on incomes. And so having just gone through a UK-wide strike across the rail network along- side one on the London tube last month, there is the prospect of strikes by airlines, doctors, teachers and even barristers.
So what could this disruption mean for the cab industry? Given many local operators are rebuilding their business after the financial impact of two years of on/off pandemic lockdowns, there are opportunities to boost the supply of drivers and hence revenues. As a platform that supports over 800 cab operators around Britain and trips in over 550 UK towns and cities, I thought I’d share some tips the minicabit team saw in managing the surge in bookings nationally during the rail/tube strikes last month.
• Yes, we now live in a world where remote working and Zoom calls reduce the need for face to face meetings. So what could have been utter gridlock everywhere was reduced to managed chaos in certain locations and times of day. In particular, there was a surge in pickups between 6am to 10am and 6pm to 8pm, with bookings coming mainly 24 hours ahead in the forlorn hope that the strike might be called off. Given these are typically times going to and from essential airport trips and
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meetings, it’s crucial that driver availability is maximised for these periods and severe traffic delays factored in.
• Demand was particularly strong in large cities such as London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow but also Colchester, Bristol and Cardiff, with average fares booked on minicabit ranging from £48 in Birmingham to £89 in Liverpool to £95 in London. Operators had to increase their rates by as much as 50% to attract drivers, and so the week provided a compelling opportunity for them to attract and retain drivers. It’s interesting that ride hailing apps are prominent in all these cities, so customers still paying higher fares to pre-book a local cab firm the day before via minicabit implies they’re open to paying a premium to lock in the availability and price of a local cab driver vs. gambling that a ride hailing app’s driver would be available on the day potentially at their excessively surged price.
• In these hectic times, we saw that some local cab firms couldn’t cope with their existing work. Anxious to keep their customers happy, they used our platform to sub- contract some of this to cab operators on our network just for the week, a smart way to retain their customers.
Indeed, minicabit has often had to contend with sharp demand surges around the UK, from ongoing tube strikes, airport shutdowns and storms. So we worked with our cab operator partners to customise their availability for work by the times of day that suited them best. Enabling them to flex their pricing and availability on our platform for these ever changing conditions is a key reason why we’ve been successful in paying out over £30 million in fares to local cab businesses - with some even on track to earn seven figure revenues from our platform over the next year!
More importantly, occasions like these are a unique opportu- nity to show the public how much of an essential service local cab firms provide in keeping the country turning, and that we all did, in spades.
If you want to know how you can boost your revenues to attract & retain drivers, you can sign up (for free) at
admin.minicabit.com or email
admininfo@minicabit.com.
Article by Amer Hasan CEO of
minicabit.com Britain’s largest cab aggregator
JULY 2022
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