By Mark Bramston, Managing Director NZ Taxi Communications
Driving, are you doing it correctly? Here I’m not going to comment on the basics, which you know very well if you have experience. You are probably good at using your dispatch system and know lots of tricks. Drivers love these games and it’s part of the everyday fun of driving. Like being a footballer running for the next Try or Goal.
What I would like to suggest is – Have you approached your service company and asked to discuss:
- How you can make more money by driving?
- Have you asked them to help you?
Here I want to flip a point of view. Many drivers are quick to focus on how the system harms their daily jobs – Yes, the call centre can make it harder and the system may not give the job or the details when you most wanted it. This is where things get stuck and I will not go into this further because there is not a universal long-term solution here. What we need is a different way to work together to help the driver to make money.
Here is one suggestion on how to do this:
My Plan to make more money in 2021
(Next week I will offer a simple plan template to assist you further)
Make that Plan to do it your way and then ask your Accountant and your Company Fleet Manager to share their data and comment on your plan.
Get a data dump of your shift workload performance. There are many ways to do this. The simplest is to ask your Company for the history file on your End of Shift totals. There is a wealth of information in these data.
- Look at your performance and put this into measurables. Things that can be compared. This is where it can hurt to know the facts, but the rewards are real. In particular know what your costs, your revenue and in particular what you are paying in factoring charges. Compare these things to test how well you are doing it. Can you change things to make more money? The answer to this is Yes. There are always ways to improve.
- Ask your dispatch provider to provide you with the fleet statistic measurables. I.e., compare yourself (end of shift summary) to the fleet. Are you better, average or underperforming? Even if you have better measurables on all aspects of how you drive there will be one or more things that can be improved upon to help you make more money. The trick here is to have this conversation with someone who understands your market, your taxi business and how the data is produced. This maybe your Fleet Manager, your business partner, a fellow driver or even your accountant. Looking at the numbers with fresh eyes always adds value. The trick is to make the effort to change and go after that new way of making money. Give it a try.
- Here is an example to help you think this over.
These are real numbers for an existing taxi fleet taken from 2019 when things were normal – identities and names withheld for privacy reasons.
| Fleet Numbers – Australian Taxi fleet 2019 | |
| Average fare | $26.63 incl GST |
| Fleet ratio Booked to Rank | 44 : 56% |
| Fleet Average pick up time to customer | 4 – 5 mins |
| Fleet Avg reject | 28.90% |
| Fleet Avg resubmit | 12.50% |
| Average car: | |
| Ratio Bookings to Rank | 43 : 57% |
| Jobs per car per day | 11 |
| Average daily taking | $293.93 |
| Number of shifts/wk. | 14 |
| Average hours per shift | 10.1 |
| Average Klms per trip | 9 |
| Average travel to pick up klms | 2.9 |
| Booking reject % | 42.70% |
| Booking resubmit | 16% |
| Main work zone | 5,6,10,11,13,23,33,35 (city) |
| Account Work | minimal account job acceptance Average $7 per day |
| Top 10% car (i.e., a car consistently working in the top 10% of the fleet over 12 MThs) | |
| Ratio Bookings to Rank | 65:35% |
| Jobs per car per day | 20 |
| Average daily taking | $532.60 |
| Average No shift/wk. | 14.8 |
| Average hours per shift | 8.4 |
| Average Klms per trip | 7.6 |
| Average travel to pick up klms | 2.7 |
| Booking reject % | 6.4% |
| Booking resubmit | 4% |
| Main work zones | 2, 5, 13, 20, 30, 33, 35 (city), 40, 44, 51 |
| Account work | 7.5 times in $ terms that of the average car. Average $52.60 per day |
Ask these questions and provide numbers for your car. How do you compare?
- What hours and shift per week will the car work?
- What Areas will the car focus upon?
- When will work be rejected and resubmitted?
- How many jobs per shift will be set as the daily goal?
- Will the car give preference to Bookings, Account work or rank work?
Ask your Company for the history file on your End of Shift totals and next week i will provide a simple plan template.
