BE READY: Are you ready for your first what3words taxi passenger destination request?

Image credit: what3words

With lockdown measures gradually lifting across the country, people are beginning to venture back to the office, restaurants, and social events. TaxiPoint recently looked at how the restriction easements led to a sharp early increase in demand for taxis in the week commencing 12 April. Now more than ever is the time to think of new ways to help keep passengers safe and improve driver productivity whilst life gets back to some sort of normality.

Improved sanitisation, following distancing and facemask guidance, and encouraging contactless payments have always been at the forefront of new actions taken by cabbies throughout the pandemic. But as taxi drivers return to their vehicles over the coming months there has been another tool to emerge that could help provide a reliable service wherever passengers want to be picked up or dropped off. That’s what3words.

If you are yet to learn of the new technology, what3words provides a really simple way for people to give operators and taxi drivers their precise pick- up point and destination. It has given every 3 metre square in the world a unique combination of 3 words – a what3words address.

Passengers who book a taxi for a professional purpose are likely to be heading to an office or conference venue. While a street address may get you to the general area that the passenger wants to go, it isn’t specific enough to point to an exact entrance.

Search for a street address and a pin will typically drop in the centre of a building which doesn’t help your customer find your vehicle in a sea of taxis outside a big venue or at the end of an event. It can also mean that passengers spend a stressful time circling a building on foot trying to find the right entrance and coming into contact with more people than necessary.

We’ve also seen a trend this year of people choosing to socialise in outdoor destinations. Passengers who are picnicing in the park or swimming at the beach can find it difficult to describe exactly where they want to be dropped off, often resorting to tricky verbal directions. Postcodes cover large areas and lots of places don’t have an address at all. Rather than relying on directions like “on the south side of the park, near the big tree”, some passengers may start feeling it’s more efficient to get dropped off or picked up at their desired location by giving a what3words address.

Hundreds of taxi drivers are now integrated with what3words following a wave of momentum in the industry. Many major dispatch software providers, including Cordic, cab9, Dispatch from Dever Software, Catalina Software, Gazoop, Onde and Chauffeur Drive Systems, have integrated what3words directly into call-taking software, web booking tools and passenger apps. This means that fleets like Sherbet, Mount Cars and HappiCabs found it straightforward to start accepting what3words addresses from their passengers to help them get around easily and safely.

The what3words app is free to download and a handy tool to have at your fingertips. Are you ready to find your first passenger via what3words?