本帖最后由 李明铭larry 于 2013-8-6 21:05 编辑
伦敦的这个叫车软件，获得了较大范围的成功，除了跟普通叫车软件一样，有两个特色我挺喜欢：
1. 最多只需要点击两下就可以叫车超级简单 2. 确定来车的司机照片、司机牌照号、汽车公司、汽车牌照号等等资料全部显示
---------------------------------------------------------------------- 来源：economist.com
SOMERSET HOUSE is a handsome 18th-century building in the touristy heart of London. Described on its website as a “major arts and cultural centre”, it does not seem like the most obvious place for a thrusting, modern app company to set up headquarters. But then in its 18 months of existence, Hailo has quickly come to feel like part of the London establishment.
The company’s taxi-finding app enables users to "e-hail" one of the city's well-known black cabs with just two taps of a smartphone. Using the phone’s GPS, the app locates them and then asks for confirmation that this is indeed the place to which the cab should come. When that has been confirmed, a message is sent to the nearest driver signed up to the Hailo scheme. If they want the business, they head to the customer. If they don’t, or respond too slowly, the next-nearest cab is alerted.
The passenger is sent their cab’s registration number and the driver's picture, together with notification of the expected arrival time. They can even follow its approach on the app's map. In central London, during daytime, the wait should be no more than a minute or so. At the end of the trip payment can be made in cash or, if the customer has chosen this option, through their Hailo account, where credit-card details can be stored.
At its launch in November 2011 Hailo had 500 London drivers signed up. It now has almost 13,000 of the city's 20,000-odd black-cab drivers on its books. The app they use costs nothing, but they must pass on 10% of any fare they receive to Hailo.
Russell Ward, one of the taxi-driving co-founders, says Hailo was the last to market of eight taxi-finding apps in London. Six have fallen by the wayside; only Get Taxi, which is similar, also remains in business. Mr Ward attributes his company's success to the fact that three of the founders were cabbies, with 50 years’ experience of the industry between them. They had been thinking about ways to reduce the roughly 50% of the working day that drivers typically spend without a paying customer. Their first idea was to develop a business to bring passengers together with drivers heading into and out of London at the beginning/end of their working day. When that folded in 2010, a meeting with three internet entrepreneurs led to the creation of Hailo.
The company has grown quickly because it nullifies one of the fundamental weaknesses of the relationship between taxi and passenger: its dependence on line-of-sight interactions. Normally passengers can only hail a cab they can see. An app that puts them in touch with taxis that are in the vicinity, but not necessarily within view, is a potentially industry-changing tool.
Since starting operations in London, Hailo has expanded into nine other cities: Dublin, Toronto, Boston, Chicago, New York, Madrid, Barcelona, Cork and Washington, DC. They are due to move into Tokyo later this year.
A New York cabbie writing recently in the Guardian questioned the safety of a system that requires him to fiddle with a phone in his cab. Drivers agree not to use the app unless their car is stationary, but he reckons that drivers keen for fares will flout this rule. He makes a good point: each driver has 15 seconds to accept a Hailo fare before it is offered to the next-nearest driver as well. After 30 seconds, they drop out of the running altogether. If they pull over to the side of the road, they may lose the job. Perhaps a voice-activated app is the solution, to ensure drivers keep their eyes on the road.
The writer’s other objection, that the app is not needed in Manhattan, with its wall-to-wall cabs, is rather less relevant. In an environment where cabs are plentiful, passengers may indeed choose to hail one in the old manner. But if they are infrequent, or the customer likes knowing something about the driver, then Hailo seems to provide a decent option.
In London, it is helping black cabs to fight back against the minicab operators such as Addison Lee, which have booking apps of their own. If passengers can use an app to hail a black cab, goes the Hailo thinking, many will do so in preference to booking a minicab, because the black-cab driver—who must pass onerous exams—knows London better and has all the historical, visitor-friendly associations of a trade body first licensed in the 17th century.
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