CANCELLED: Taxi booking circle of rejection continues to leave riders, drivers and venues frustrated

The use of taxi booking apps and platforms has become increasingly popular in recent years, but a vicious circle of rejection between riders, drivers, and venues has continued to cause problems for all three groups.

Just after covid restrictions were dropped, TaxiPoint reported that riders were becoming increasingly frustrated by the long wait times for taxis and the cancellation of bookings originally accepted by the driver. However, the cancellation made by the driver was sometimes prompted by the uncertainty of cancellations made by the venue or customers.

Why are customers and venues cancelling on drivers who are enroute? There are two main reasons. One, a different taxi arrives first, dropping a passenger off, and the waiting passenger just jumps into the now available cab without cancelling their original booking. Cancelling or failing to turn up for the original booked cab has no penalties or charges so why would they wait?

The second reason is that some hotel concierge workers are booking multiple taxis for the one single booking to ensure a car turns up. So long as their resident gets a ride, they get their tip, everyone is happy from their point of view. For the other multiple cabs that turn up... there’s nothing but wasted time and fuel costs to welcome them.

Something must give as, in theory, the system should work for all three groups.

Drivers are now at a stage of being very wary of accepting longer requests with longer run-ins and have noted the hotels that play the system. That’s not good for the passenger who will feel let down by the black cab service, when in fact it’s down to months of concierge cancellations.

There are a number of solutions that have been proposed to break the circle of rejection, including:

• Displaying the number of cancelled jobs in the last 100 requests. This would allow venues and drivers to see each other's cancellation rates and make more informed decisions about whether to accept a job.

• Providing better communication between riders and drivers. This could be done through the taxi app itself, or through a separate messaging platform.

• Offering incentives, or penalties, for riders and drivers to behave in a more cooperative way. For example, venues could be rewarded for not cancelling their rides, and drivers could be rewarded for accepting longer pick-up times.

• Working with venues to ensure that they are not abusing the system by booking multiple taxis for one rider. Threaten the removal of the booking system if they cannot use it responsibly.

Who is going to make the first move to help this taxi eco-system function better? The driver, the venue or the passenger?