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Transport United Kingdom

Working on applications used by the biggest taxi companies in the country

Executive Summary

Challenge: Trapeze Group needed to improve their Auriga Dispatch System, to continue to offer a competitive product used by the biggest taxi companies in the country.

Approach: Numerous on-site visits, where we engaged with actual users and observed their daily use of the software. We also provided suggestions for enhancing functionality and technology stacks.

Result: Improved software solutions and user experience for taxi companies and passengers. We have developed server, web and mobile  applications, bringing Trapeze more satisfied clients.

Table of Contents

About the client

Trapeze Group is a provider of software solutions used for public transport, including taxi and private hire fleet management.

Trapeze Group is an international transportation software company that has clients across Europe, North America and the Asia Pacific, providing its solutions to public and private transport organisations and authorities.

Trapeze Group is a subsidiary of Volaris Group, which is mainly focused on acquiring, strengthening and growing vertical market technology companies enabling them to be clear leaders within their focused industry.

Business challenge

Our collaboration started in 2009 and resulted in many interesting projects.

Our main goal is to ensure that Trapeze Group can continue to offer a competitive product that is used by the biggest taxi companies in the country, making passengers’ lives easier.

We have developed a number of server, web and mobile applications for Trapeze’s Auriga Dispatch System, which manages private hire and taxi fleets.

Adding and developing new components allowed greater optimisation, bringing Trapeze more satisfied clients.

Scope of work

The most tangible effect of our collaboration is EVO SOLUTIONS – an internal desktop app written in Java, used mainly to manage tens of thousands of jobs every day – from the process of ordering a taxi and scheduling it, to staff asset management.

How does EVO SOLUTIONS work in practice? When a taxi company gets a booking, it is then sent to the most efficient vehicle for the job to be completed.

Many business rules have been implemented such asdispatch optimisation based on zones and point-based mathematical algorithms as well as loyalty benefits for regular customers.

We have updated the maps to display more detailed, up-to-date information, allowing telephonists to view and track vehicles on their own screen, providing better “back on the phone” service. Improving the appearance of maps contributed significantly to increasing usability, especially with the possibility to manually dispatch a job to a vehicle from the enquiry screen.

It is safe to say that we are being trusted and treated as a partner, which is manifested, among others, by the fact that we are given a lot of freedom in the case of technological solutions.

I think team cooperation has to be the strongest plus point for Future Processing. Both teams we work with communicate well with my team based in the UK, are open to offering suggestions of improvements with functionality and technology stacks.

Dave Rose
Operations Manager, Trapeze Group

We were also asked to streamline the client’s iOS app for the Auriga Dispatch System – TAXIBOOKING – which provides a simple way for customers in the UK and Ireland to make their own taxi bookings with just a few taps on their phone.

We assisted with issue resolution, the application’s Graphical User Interface (GUI) and implementation of additional features and currently TAXIBOOKING allows booking a taxi or private hire vehicle.

An iOS booking application allows Trapeze Group clients’ to order a taxi, select the location or track the taxi using Google maps and to choose a payment method. An additional advantage is that, depending on the season (e.g. Christmas), it can adjust and take more bookings, therefore meeting Trapeze Group clients’ needs at all times.

After we worked on an iOS booking, it was only natural that we started to work on an Android version of the app.

Key success factors

What helped us better understand our client’s needs was a visit to Trapeze Group’s end clients’ offices, where we talked to real users and saw how the software is used on a daily basis.

We also saw reports presenting bounce rate of calls, which again focused our attention on how important it is for the software to be responsive, even during peak seasons (e.g. Halloween, Holiday time etc.), since the passengers can change their mind if waiting time is too long.

Technologies used in the project