BLURRING THE LINES
Today they need fleets because fleets in the main own the vehicles. Tomorrow that assumption may not hold true. If autonomous vehicles become commercially viable at scale, then suddenly the software companies already have everything they need. They know where the demand is. The know how to distribute work. They know how to manage pricing. They already own the booking, journey and the customer experience. The only missing piece is the vehicle itself.
rideshare platforms and global technology companies inserting themselves between operators and customers. We watched Uber grow from an interesting concept 15 years ago into a global force. We watched platforms begin to own the customer relationship. We worried about losing control of demand and drivers.
Meanwhile another shift was taking place right under our noses.
The software providers were becoming bigger, smarter and more influential. Some now have processed north of a billion bookings. Some have visibility across tens of thousands of vehicles. Some have become so deeply embedded within our offices that replacing them would be almost impossible without rebuilding the business from the ground up. Even a change of DMS these days can be catastrophic or game changing for a business.
Then you start looking at the wider transport market and things become even more interesting.
The race towards autonomy is no longer science fiction. Every major technology company involved in transport is investing heavily in autonomous vehicles. Billions are being spent attempting to remove what is, from a purely commercial perspective, the single largest cost in the transport equation: the driver. Whilst many of us are of the opinion that happens in five years, ten years or twenty years, is almost irrelevant. The reality is that its already here and it’s already happened - we just don’t realise it yet.
Which brings us back to the dispatch providers. PHTM JULY 2026
I’m sure many of you will now be thinking of a certain Gallic automotive company that owns the dominant dispatch platform. That’s before you look at the other side of that coin; with Uber owning and directly controlling Autocab, could we see a certain electric car manufacturer make a play for the world’s dominant rideshare platform in the near future?
When you consider the Veezu investment into Cab9 it does make you stop and think. Have they looked into the future and decided they need to control their own destiny outright without relying on external third parties.
I’m not suggesting Cab9, Autocab, iCabbi or anyone else is about to launch a fleet of robotaxis next week. What I am suggesting is that the boundaries between operators, software providers, aggregators and transport platforms are becoming increasingly difficult to define. The roles that once seemed fixed are starting to overlap which should give everyone reading this pause for thought.
Perhaps dispatch providers will always remain software companies. Perhaps operators will always sit at the centre of the industry. Or perhaps, ten years from now, we’ll look back and realise that the balance of power shifted long before anyone noticed.
Because if history has taught this industry anything, it is that disruption rarely arrives with a warning. Usually it arrives quietly, sits in the corner for a few years and then one day everyone suddenly realises the industry has changed around them.
The real question isn’t whether your DMS is planning to kick you to the kerb; it’s whether you’ll control your DMS or it controls you.
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