YOU WANT THE BEST? HEAD FOR SOUTHSIDE GLASGOW
In 1994, Southside Radio Cars was estab- lished in Glasgow with ten cars, two tele- phone lines, a clipboard and a lot of ambition. Sixteen years later they have grown to become a fully licensed base with 250 cars, 40+ telephone lines and a state-of-the-art com- puter system.
There are many rea- sons why their business is so suc- cessful.
Paul
Macdonald, a Director and co-founder of the business says, “We know our working area intimately and under- stand the demands of our customers. We never forget that our customers have a choice so we listen carefully to their feed- back.
“The care and safety of customers who trav- el with us is paramount. All of our drivers are licensed with Glasgow City Council and have obtained enhanced Disclosure Scotland Certificates from the Scottish Criminal Records Office. In fact, drivers cannot log on to work on our system if any of their docu- ments are not in order. We have set up the system to be very strict about that.” The owners of South- side Radio Cars are committed to reinvest- ing in the business to ensure that they stay
having to reboot the system.”
IN THE VEHICLES Paul continues:
“We
head and shoulders above their competi- tors. Advertising is a good example of this as they currently use business cards, bill- boards, radio and even TV advertising. Paul and his partners regularly consult the management informa- tion available from their new computer system to make sure their job count is growing and providing a return on their investment. Their Sigtec system even reports on the number of keystrokes used to make a booking so you can see which operators are using the system most effi- ciently. Indeed, after only a few weeks of their Sigtec system being installed, they enjoyed one of their busiest Saturday nights ever!
HERALD THE DISPATCHER 8
It’s clear that South- side Radio Cars rely heavily on their com- puter system. They have a lot of experi- ence on the subject, so we asked Paul to explain their back- ground: “Since the days when we used a pen and paper to take our bookings, we’ve used three other com- puterised dispatch systems to help us with the management of our growing busi- ness. Installing a new computer system always involves a degree of stress but sometimes you’ve got to do it. In the past we’ve had to switch providers because we’ve outgrown their capabilities, or the system has simply gotten old and less
reliable.
“Since June of this year,
we’ve used
Sigtec’s latest Win- dows-based system called Dispatcher 8. Sigtec have many years of experience in running some of the largest taxi and private hire companies all over the world, so we felt confident that we would be in good hands. “We think that a com- puterised system should operate as closely as possible to a good human dis- patcher, only much faster! With Sigtec we are able to do that by setting up dispatch rules that can be easi- ly configured by us to reflect what an experi- enced controller would do. For exam- ple, we set up schedules to deter- mine how the system works at busy times and during quiet peri- ods. We can tell it how to operate when there is an event like a foot- ball match on in a certain area of Glas- gow. We can operate on pure GPS dispatch, plot-based dispatch or a mixture of both. “One of the biggest benefits is having the ability to make changes to our system by ourselves. We can tweak our zone boundaries on a map, change plot names, vehicle types or lead times of zones without
PAGE 52
also understand that we have two sets of customers that we must keep happy. One is the person who calls to make a booking and the other is the driver who picks them up. Every car is equipped with a Sigtec MDX8 Mobile Data Terminal which is actually a rugged miniature Win- dows computer spe- cifically designed for the taxi trade. We use these for displaying jobs to drivers, calcu- lating journey dis- tances and for satellite navigation.
“When not on a job, the drivers can use the touch-screen to see where the work is around the city, past, present and future. Drivers also benefit from being sent statis- tics every 15 minutes so they can monitor our performance.” On the subject of com- munications, Paul said: “We use PMR (radios) for communi-
A A
SOUTHSIDE RADIO CARS
Address:
Telephone: Website:
Cemetery Road, Glasgow G52 1SJ
0141 883 3333 Year firm started:
www.southsideradiocars.co.uk 1994
Number of vehicles: 250
Types of vehicle: All Private Hire – Saloons, Estates and People Carriers
Licensing authority: Glasgow City Council Booking office licence: £289 for three years Driver Licence:
£67 for 1 year; £161 for 3 years
Vehicle Licence: Booking system:
Phone system: Radio system:
£166 for 1 year; £398 for 3 years
Computerised - Sigtec Dispatcher 8 with MDX8 Data Terminals
Samsung
Tait TM8100 series mobiles
PHTM NOVEMBER 2010
cations because we understand it. We have control over it and if something goes wrong, we know how to fix it. We know other Sigtec systems like the huge one in Dubai use GPRS only, but we have the option to slide a SIM card into our MDX8 terminals to use GPRS as backup. We could also use GPRS to extend our coverage if, for exam- ple, we decide to add on a bureau fleet else- where in the country. “With Sigtec, our cars will automatically change radio chan- nels as required when they drive around our working area, so they benefit from using the strongest signals at all times.”
Not only have the team at Southside Radio Cars success- fully grown their business; they also believe in giving something back. They have raised tens of thousands of pounds for Cash for Kids, Anthony Nolan Trust and Breast Cancer Awareness. They are an inspiration to us all.
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