If you’re thinking of entering the world of transportation and taxi, the rest of this read should set you on the right track!

As of 2023, the taxi industry is estimated to be worth 42.6 billion dollars in the US alone. Easily, the taxi business is one of the most lucrative lines to get into with low upfront costs.

However, running a taxi fleet can be quite a challenge. It takes organization, efficiency, and proper planning to make sure everything is running smoothly.

That’s why you need a trusted fleet operation software to help you on your way to success — providing passenger, driver, fleet operation and owner operator solutions so you can keep up with the industry’s ever-changing demand.

Get Your Paperwork Done

Whether you’re contracting or employing taxi drivers, you need to keep track of accounting, legislative, and quality insurance necessities.

You might find these recurring tasks overwhelming. Fortunately, there are taxi software features out there that make dealing with paperwork a breeze.

For instance, SmartMove’s DocketKiller feature revolutionizes book-keeping and streamlines processes to save you time and effort.

Benefits for Drivers

• 100% paperless transactions.
• End of shift report is available immediately when the driver logs off.
• Calculates income, cash, statistics and amount payable to the driver.
• Expenses can be recorded in the vehicle and the end of shift report will make the appropriate adjustments.
• Fare discrepancy report is also available.

Benefits for Owner/Operators

• Summary of the account work done by a vehicle.
• Formatted as an invoice from owner to fleet.
• Invoices can be easily generated at the end of a month.
• No handling of dockets required. All the information needed is already in the system.
• Can be emailed.
• Owner can check details before invoices are issued to account holders.

In short, all information required for invoicing is right at your fingertips in one convenient system.

Looking After Your Taxi Drivers

Running a taxi business means that you not only need to look after your customers, but also the drivers behind the wheel. SmartMove understands the importance of your duty to provide top-notch care and ensure everyone is safe on the road.

Thus, we created a system that includes features like Duress Panic, Soft Meter, End of Shift Report, and more!

How to Get the Most Out of Your Taxi Business

Invest in advanced software solutions such as fleet management software. Their built-in customer and driver apps can really give your business a much needed boost.

At SmartMove, your drivers have access to SmartDriver, a state-of-the-art app which allows them to handle bookings away from their vehicles. At the touch of a button, SmartDriver will also respond to messages, access shift reports, and fill in the logbook. 

In addition, taxi drivers:

• Receive job offers, and interact with them.
• Navigate to the next job using the phone’s GPS
• View flight Information
• View future booking information
• Easy access to job & financial information

Choose a Low-Cost Booking and Dispatch System

SmartMove Systems is a global leader in booking and dispatch systems, serving Taxi Networks, Fleets, Rideshare Operators, Paratransit, Livery, and Shuttle service providers with lower-cost & scalable booking, dispatch, and integrated call-center solutions.

Book a Demo today!

To properly strategize for start-ups or a small fleet, examining the fundamental needs of the business is in order. A staple in business schools and various strategists of all stripes has been Sun Tzu’s Art Of War.

And it had a gem worth living by: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

So in a nutshell, we need to know more to make better decisions, and we do that by identifying the present challenges facing start-ups and small fleets. That’s how a business strategy for taxi start-ups gets built.

If you’re starting out from scratch, here’s some food for thought:

Knowing Yourself

While there are a multitude of things to pay attention to in business, we’ll take a look at some challenges that a taxi start-up should consider when pursuing growth.

60 Second Summary Video of SmartMove Systems:

Profitability

The first and foremost consideration that makes all the others possible is profitability. There have been several ways to traditionally monetize aspects of a taxi business such as selling ad space to show on top of a vehicle or behind it and that’s still valid when feasible. There are also new business models that rely more on outside funding to sustain operations instead of organically being profitable like with ride-share companies.

The important thing when it comes to profitability is deciding how and when to be profitable. The ‘how’ means deciding the aspect of the business that makes money, and for taxi businesses, it can be finding out which areas are more profitable to have more cars in. The ‘when’ is typically related to your Return On Investment (ROI) which Investopedia states: “tells you how much money you’ve made (or lost) an investment or project after accounting for its cost.”

But more than that, a good rule of thumb to review your profitability is in the 2nd year and 5th year of operations as JP Morgan Chase notes in their research that a third of businesses quit in the second year and nearly half of all new businesses exit in their 5th year. 

When making business decisions with profitability in mind, see how these decisions can pay for themselves. For example, SmartMove’s lower cost, extensive features, and efficient & accurate reporting ticks all of the boxes including Sun Tzu’s advice about knowing yourself as a path to victory.

Staffing

The next important aspect in the taxi business is staffing — partly because, conceptually, you need to be able to trust those that work with you and for you, and partly because any enterprise that does not know its people might neglect those who deliver performance, and might keep dead wood.

The way to take care of your staff is to factor in pay, benefits, and working conditions for your drivers and management staff. Oftentimes, it’s more prudent to outsource customer service calls as they constitute a different kind of service that also requires a different set of pay, benefits, and accounting for working conditions which all require valuable time and resources that would be better spent on the core aspects of your start-up.

On that note, SmartMove provides a solution as call center operations are included and integrated in the service and can work with your own in-house call center should you wish to have your own in the future.

As noted in a book by the Transportation Research Board, compensation is the main detail that gets drivers, but it wasn’t just purely the numbers as compensation included earnings, benefits, and payment practices.

As for earnings, it might be a good idea to reference publicly available pay data as well as find out from competitors to get an edge in finding talent.

With respect to benefits, they come in two flavors: state mandated and employer provided. The former needs to be complied with so it’s important to get all above board, while juggling the conflicting needs of the staff, the state, the business, and the clients.

Now, the two dominant types in payment practices are the ‘percentage per ride deduction’ and the flat per-day/per-week lease fee, and it’s been shown that drivers have preferred the former. So to attract drivers, a percentage basis is preferable but such a system requires some software integration in the cars and the fleet operations. So another strategy for taxi start-ups here would be to use dispatch software that can record and account for rides accurately.

Customer Acquisition

The lifeblood of the business is in the customers, and while it sounds like common sense, it will take data-driven decision making to truly understand the cost of acquiring a new customer and retaining an existing one.

There are many a business strategy for taxi start-ups to find when it comes to this, and customer acquisition costs can be broadly divided into two categories: marketing expenses (ads, discounts, vouchers, social media, SEO) and operational expenses (incentives for drivers to take more rides).

While it’s important to research what works in this aspect, it’s also important to use the data generated from the business itself. Market research can be pretty expensive, and data like that can be found almost free in unexpected places like customer complaints, data generated from the dispatch software, driver inputs, and more. Integrated software solutions with many features can tie in together the different data to expand the bigger picture.

Customer’s Standards & Expectations

Last but not least, another consideration to know about as a start-up is what customers want. It’s become clear that app-based transportation is now the norm, and a lot of software-based features are expected of any modern sophisticated cab.

Features like tracking their rides, multiple payment options, and more are available with SmartMove’s SmartHail passenger app that can be white labeled to cultivate your brand.

Making the SmartMove

In each and every strategy for taxi start-ups, a lot of the success hinges on making informed business decisions. And the way forward to that is adopting a comprehensive all-in-one software solution that integrates the features and functions together to work seamlessly, efficiently, and affordably.

Make the SmartMove and book a demo today to find out more about how these challenges can be solved.

There are various reasons as to why people start transportation companies. Entrepreneurs consider high demand and lack of (good) options of transportation in the area they plan to serve.

People will always need transportation. Medical transportation demand has been on the rise, and many are capitalizing by starting an NEMT (non-emergency medical transportation) company. On another note, as society is moving towards more normalcy, the freedom to travel and enjoy social experiences has also resulted in many overcompensating for the lost last few years by going out and traveling more than before, also boosting business in transportation.

In order to optimize profitability, overhead and operating costs, it’s vital to identify a profitable system for customer booking and ride dispatching to drivers. Luckily, SmartMove Systems offers startup taxi and NEMT companies with affordable, low-cost options for custom branded online booking, dispatching, and customer support.

Made to Grow with Small Fleets

SmartMove Systems cater to the diverse needs of transportation companies. Whether you are starting with 2 vehicles or 200+, SmartMove offers options for any budget. We’ve helped small, modest fleets grow to large fleets with multiple transportation verticals and extended service areas.

Get your online booking and dispatching with SmartMove >>

Keep Up with Today’s Standards

With all of the online and mobile applications in today’s age, the customer experience (CX) and even driver experience expectations are high. This makes it even more necessary to provide convenient online booking/app options that integrate and work together with dispatching.

Make the SmartMove

Taxi and NEMT startups need an affordable option for ride management and operations. SmartMove brings high level technology at a lower cost.

It’s no wonder why more networks and operators are turning to SmartMove Systems for their transportation company operation needs.

• Great Experience for Passenger, Driver, Operators
• Low Cost, Affordable
• Live GPS Vehicle Tracking
• Easy Dispatching Platform
• Corporate Account Portal for Your Business Clients
• Use Android Devices
• Advanced, In-Depth, Real-Time Reports & Financials
• Low Cost Call Center Answering Service 
• Custom Branded Online Booking and Mobile Apps
• 24/7 Technical Support

Try SmartMove

Getting Started is Easy

Book a free demo today. The SmartMove team is ready to explain in-depth, the features that fit your specific needs.

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Contact Us

Support/Sales: +1 (206) 886 0620

Email:  help@smartmovesystems.com

Learn more about SmartMove Systems bundled with call center services >>

It’s important, when considering a transportation management system or looking to replace your existing one, to think deeply about how it works when connecting customer service agents answering phones (chats, social media, etc.) to drivers that want the ride, as well as how the customer experiences their ride verification.

SmartMove’s Comprehensive and Integrated approach to taxi dispatching provides a thorough software solution to taxi companies, their customer support, drivers, and clients.

SmartMove’s cutting edge advanced technology addresses the needs of every part of the taxi ride from the passenger to the driver, to the operations and the support team.

Passenger Experience

Passenger safety, privacy, and convenience has been thought through in SmartMove’s software solutions.

The SmartHail app provides passengers with lots of customization options and relevant information about their rides.

Web browser booking is also available from SmartMove, allowing companies to have a custom branded website booking tool for another easy booking experience. 

Privacy is ensured with passenger and driver being able to call each other with no phone numbers being revealed while saving dead miles and reducing wait times for passengers by enabling SMS communication and tracking.

SmartMove supports a variety of payment methods that’s intuitive and painless with instant digital receipts sent by email.

More details of the features and benefits can be found here:

Driver Workflows

SmartMove’s software solution for Drivers reduces the friction of their workdays primarily through the SmartDriver App which enables them to access shift reports, fill in their logbook and send messages. 

Drivers can also rest easy with SmartMove’s advanced driver duress alarm solutions to keep them safe on the road which can be a physical panic button installed in a discreet location in the vehicle.

SmartMove Go provides a soft meter that calculates the fare based on distance traveled and works as a backup to the stand-alone meter or even works for areas outside of normal operating areas.

More driver solutions can be found here:

Fleet Operation Support

SmartMove’s cutting edge technology quickly dispatches bookings to the suitable cars and, through the Docketkiller tool, it takes care of the accounting, regulatory, insurance, and quality assurance paperwork with detailed information on the most relevant categories streamlining all processes.

SmartMove bundles call center support either on a full time or part time basis. Moreover through the SmartVoix phone system automating simple inquiries is easier than ever. 

Ask about our packages that bundles SmartMove Systems + SmartMove Call Center Services

Everything you need to run a modern, advanced transportation company.

The plethora of benefits can be read here:

Owner/Operator Solutions

All of these software solutions tie in with operators and owners having full access to the financials giving them unparalleled awareness and control over their business. 

SmartMove offers customized reporting that allows you to focus on the data points that matter. 

To see more of these integrations, see here:

Who Needs SmartMove Systems?

• Taxi Companies
• Non-Emergency Medical Transportation (NEMT) Companies
• Limo Companies
• Shuttle Transportation Companies
• Any Transportation Company that Needs Comprehensive Trip Management

SmartMove Systems is easily scalable to grow as your business grows. Serving the needs of fleets of all sizes, from 1–200+ vehicles.

To get firsthand experience of these benefits and more, book a demo with us today!