A Dunedin taxi company has spent close to $500,000 on a booking system that moves its technology from telephone calls to an automated system that uses text messages and computer technology.
Dunedin Taxis' new system, which went live this week, includes sending an automatic text message to mobile phones when a taxi is 200m away, and an app that allows users to see the location of the taxi they booked.
Manager Simone Green said the company made the decision to buy the technology from a Melbourne company last year.
Keeping up with technology that was already being used in Auckland and Wellington, and was being introduced in Christchurch, was important in a competitive industry.
The system would recognise the address of a caller if they had booked a taxi before.
The system read the address to the caller and asked them to press a number to book a taxi.
Once the call was booked, the job went directly to a driver, who carried a device that notified them if they were out of the car.
When it did not recognise the number, the caller would be put through to an operator.
Callers could also choose to speak to an operator instead of using the system.
Ms Green said some regular taxi users still wanted to speak to someone and that was easily organised so they always went directly to an operator.
However, the new system made things faster and more accurate and was less subject to human error and confusion with radio communication, she said.
Despite the system being linked to vehicles' navigation systems, they did not replace a driver's good knowledge of the area.
It would not prevent passengers needing to wait on very busy nights, but passengers could be notified if there was a wait.
Passengers would be told the fare by the computer while in the vehicle, and drivers could be told their earnings and the number of kilometres they had travelled.
Ms Green said the system, while running, was still in the process of being fully implemented.
It would not result in the loss of operators' jobs at the company.
