Frank Chee-Da Tsai

75% of the time, taxis in Taipei city do not carry passengers. The current taxi dispatch system is set up using a centralized call centre, matching passengers and taxis. It is often understaffed, which results in long waiting times and low service levels. However, hiring more staff would drive up the costs. Calling a taxi takes an average of 356 sec. and is quite expensive for the passengers, due to high mobile phone charges. To conserve energy, reduce pollution, lower costs, and save time for taxis and passengers, we propose an innovative „Passenger as Call-Centre” dispatch system.

Based on devices with GNSS and Wifi /DSRC, the proposed system operates in a distributed and “local” way; meaning only nearby taxies will respond to a passenger’s service request. The system thereby eliminates the need for the traffic-heavy & costly cellular networks, labour intensive call centres, and expensive CIS data centres used in the current dispatch system. Based on commercially available technologies and fully equipped with patent protection, a tested prototype, and a fi nancially feasible business model, the new system comes ready to be deployed – without any regulation restrictions.

Contact:
ftsai@iii.org.tw