64 PRIVATE HIRE AND TAXI MONTHLY
MARCH 2009
AWARDING ACHIEVEMENT BOOTLE FIRM DELTA HAILED AS TOP TECHS
Delta Taxis drove off with yet another award at last month’s Sefton Chamber of Commerce Business Awards and Prestige Ball.
The firm which boasts 1,500 drivers, was awarded the New Tech- nology Award to add to the Sefton Business of the Year accolade won at last year’s event. Last July, Delta moved from its base on Moor Lane, Crosby, into a £3.3m state-of-the-art headquarters on Strand Road, Bootle, which houses its 100 workers who do not drive includ- ing house engineers, call centre staff and a driver training centre. Chamber chief execu- tive officer Steve Dickson said: “Estab- lished in 1968 Delta Taxis is now the busiest taxi office in Europe, handling up to 2,100 bookings an hour for passengers in Knowsley, Liverpool
New Technology Award collected by Delta chief engineer Barry Lord (right) and IT manager Douglas Core (centre)
and South Sefton.” The award was given after Delta’s team of seven engineers, led by chief executive Gary Beesley spoke with experts in Ontario, California, Melbourne, Dublin and Prague to develop an interactive voice recording sys- tem that could handle the firm’s calls, expect- ed to reach eight million this year. Delta company secre- tary Paul McLaughlin
told the Crosby Herald: “We had outgrown our old system, and we needed something that could handle lots of calls very fast. We have been growing by almost a million jobs a year for the last four years. “This kind of system is the first of its kind in the world. When I heard we had won the award, I was delighted for our team of engi- neers.
“This is testament to
their incredible hard work, which sometimes saw them sleeping in the office and saw them speaking with engi- neers across five different time zones.” The Business of the Year award was pre- sented by Andrew Edwards, who officially started his role as group editor of Medi- amix newspapers (including the Crosby Herald) last month. He told the audience: “I am fortunate to draw my pay cheque every month but you people have the bravery to run your own businesses. “The hours are long, the risk is yours and the pay cheque is only there if the business is profitable.
“But you are all absolutely critical to the success of our local economy. I am looking forward to working with you to keep Sefton on the map.”
A Redruth taxi firm is going from strength to strength with the open- ing of a new office in Pool.
2000, set up in 2005 by Tony Smith, and then known as Star Cabs, runs a fleet of 18 cars driven by male and female drivers. Four of these are spe- cialist disabled vehicles and all drivers have undergone the firm’s three-week training ses- sion, which includes being made aware of legal responsibilities and customer care. Tony told the Cornish Guardian: “When I started it was just me. Now all drivers must undergo a one-hour driving test and crimi- nal records check. “Ongoing training con- tinues with the VRQ/ NVQ level two for the taxi industry with Truro College. This is not a legal requirement, but something our staff
EMPHASIS ON TRAINING AT REDRUTH TAXI FIRM
must undergo as a con- dition of driving for 2000.” Tony added: “As a firm, our portfolio includes many corporate con- tracts, county and Social Service contracts. “We provide Customer Freephones in most of the supermarkets and railway links and Euro- pean travel for the disabled.
The firm is now invest- ing in a new computerised booking and dispatch system, which will pinpoint the exact position of each vehicle at any given time and send the near- est car to the customer. Tony said: “The current climate certainly needs to be taken into consid- eration, but to entrench and simply ride out the storm is not an option. “It is a time to let others do that while we push even harder for a greater share of whatever the market has to offer.”
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