Tampa Taxi Shots

This blog is my parallel blog to the popular Tampa Taxi Shots. I am just trying to get Google to pick up my feeds so I can start getting some traffic. It should be coming soon.

Taxi Repair Job

The taxi I am driving has over 300,000 miles on it. The shop changes the oil every month as specified by the the owners manual. These cars will run for almost eternity. They do, however, start to use oil. That is what is happening with my cab.

The fare I picked up said they could smell oil burning. After I dropped them off, I checked the oil and I could see I needed at least one quart. Considering the oil had been changed last week, that meant I was burning oil. In the sixteen years I have been with United Cab of Tampa, I have never had a new car.

I see other drivers get a new car every year and I wonder why they treat me any kind of way. I need to ask Paul Hinton That. I would like to have a new taxi by the Fall time of the year.

You can see a taxi with its hood up at an Advance Auto Parts store on Dale Mabry is not good advertising for the cab company. We need to build up riders who have confidence in the ability of us to get them to where they are going.

Tampa Hack Blog

Just to let people know that this shadow blog that I have been keeping since 2007 is called Tampa Hack. This blog shadows Tampa Taxi shots with other thoughts and concepts not covered on my main blog. There are many people who will be coming in for the 2012 Republican Convention and they may want to read this blog to see what is going on in Tampa Florida.

Taxi Riders Like The New United Cab Dispatch Features

United Cab of Tampa has some new features on our high-tech dispatch system that people are really digging. When people call for a taxi they will receive a text message letting them know the cab number of the unit that is on its way. It even lets them know how far away it is (1.2 miles for example). As the taxi get closer, the customer gets another message telling them to come outside their taxi is turning onto their block. When the driver is on site, it will automatically do the call out for the driver. The customers like this; they like it a lot. In fact, if they have an 'I Phone' they can download a software that post a map of the city on their phone and allows them to follow the progress of the taxi in REAL TIME. Now how cool is that!

Just tonight, for example, on every call in the Hyde Park area I got, the fares were waiting outside as I arrived. They were waving at me. My hope is this will help increase our call count and customer loyalty. In the long run it should have a positive affect on the money we are making.

Now, when customers call Yellow Cab, they will think they have called "dial a prayer." They dial and pray they show up. After all, the customer has no information about if a Yellow Cab is actually on its way or not. This feature will be very effective in building up not only our club and party business, but in increasing our airport business that should feature prominently in taxi drivers portfolio.

United Cab is the only company anyone should call in Tampa. So when those Republicans come to Tampa next year, I hope they all use our service. They will have perfect information about how they will be served.

Don't Leave Your Cell Phone In The Taxi

This photo demonstrates that there is no excuse for losing your cell phone in a public taxi cab. I was out on Clearwater beach recently and they were having a bikini contest at Sheppard's Beach Resort and I thought I would check it out.

I could not believe all the semi-nude women that were walking around, and all of them had cell phones! This young lady in a black string bikini had a unique way of holding on to her phone (note the front of her bikini bottom).

The reason I mention this is that people often lose their phones in the taxi cabs. That creates a problem for the driver because we have to waste time returning the phone and people don't always give us a tip, so, we lose a fare. All cab drivers have this problem with phones. If we do return a phone, please understand that we have just missed a call and take care of us.

Now people, you can see there is no excuse for not having your phone on your person when you exit the taxi cab. Just leave some plastic gloves so we can handle it!

A New Taxi Driver

I pulled up along this new driver today. He was reading a readers digest and waiting for a call. I don't know about this guy. He had some strange ides about working the same hours every day and having a plan, or system, and sticking with it. I don't know about that.

He will learn soon that you can't work this like a business. You have to work the bars at night and sleep in your cab or you have no chance of making money. Larry thinks you can have a better plan.

Anyway, I hope Larry has good luck along the way. He just might last a couple of days or so.

A Good Weekend For Tampa Taxi Drivers

This weekend has been good for United Cab drivers. It does come as sort of a surprise with it being August and such. I know its the first of the month but I think something else is going on. The new dispatch system installed by United Cab seems to be improving our business.

The primary feature is text messaging to the customer. United Cab customers receive a text message after they hang up notifying them that a cab has been asigined, the number of the taxi, and the distance the taxi is currently at. When the taxi is within a mile, the customer will get another text telling them to come outside because the taxis arrival is eminent.

Most of the customers that I talk to really like this feature and say that is the reason they are calling United now instead of Yellow. That is the reason I think our call count is going up, we are giving the service that our customers want.