Founder of Taxicode, Jonathan Kettle blogs about collaboration with TransportAPI
I’m delighted to announce that we’ve teamed up with TransportAPI so from today, via your TransportAPI developer account, you can now access Taxicode’s extensive pricing matrix and database to get the price of a taxi from almost any location in the UK. The taxi market is hot right now, we’re seeing a big shift to people booking online via desktop, tablet, phone and app and the volume and quality of information we can offer TransportAPI users vastly enriches customer experience. If you’re an APP based developer there’s now a big opportunity to access our service which was previously exclusively used by Taxicode internally. Companies like Uber offer an on-demand service but over half of all journey in the UK are pre-booked days or weeks in advance and Taxicodes network is the UK’s largest pre-booked taxi network.
Our database is vast, with almost 1,000 registered companies on our network. Vehicles range from a standard saloon, through to minibuses and executive class vehicles such as 5 series BMW or S class Mercedes. But it’s not just about pricing it’s also about transparency and great customer service. Via the Taxicode Marketplace not only can you get pricing information on almost any range of vehicle, you can also find out how good or bad the taxi company is.
We have a unique performance metric that measures the effectiveness of each taxi company on our network. We measure punctuality, email response times, customer feedback and even what percentage of calls the driver picks up. Using our complex algorithm, we attribute a score out of 10 to each company based on a 90 day average. So not only do we tell you who is the cheapest company to get you to the airport we’ll also tell you how good they are.
We also provide a fulfillment service at the prices advertised so customers can book their journey on Taxicode.com at the same price they’ve been quoted. This service is used by 1,000’s of people every day and is having an effect on performance as the marketplace creates downward price pressure on the taxi companies who are forced to compete for the work that we provide. Added to that is the performance pressure we exert to ensure they provide a quality level of service to customers. The companies on our network are fighting for the business so it’s a very competitive model and that’s great for customers. Moving forward, Taxicode and TransportAPI will be working together to provide affiliate links allowing TransportAPI developers to make a commission on every customer who books through our platform. You can see examples of our API in operation here and our app. we’ve also got a different approach here to illustrate other ways our API can be used. Follow us @Taxicode @Jonathan_Kettle
