From people with brain injuries attending day centres to students needing transport to school, the drivers of Taxi van Meurs cover it all. The family business, which started as a street taxi company in Simpelveld, has grown over the years to become an established name in the care, student and employee transport sector in Limburg. For years, they have been using Cabman data terminals to streamline their various transport services.
Within Taxi van Meurs and its subsidiaries, more than 10,000 transport movements take place every day. “We transport around 2,000 students to no less than 180 locations in the region every day,” says Frank van Meurs, director of Taxi van Meurs. “We also focus on transporting people to day centres. This ranges from passengers with Down’s syndrome to those suffering from Parkinson’s disease. We also provide transport for youth care.”
Streamlining
To streamline all these transport services, Taxi van Meurs uses a proprietary scheduling package and the Cabman data terminal. “The type of transport we provide must be consistent. Passengers are often assigned to the same driver, and each vehicle is equipped with a board computer with the same configuration. In this way, we try to maintain as much continuity as possible,” explains Van Meurs.
Maximising data
At Taxi van Meurs, it is crucial to get as much as possible out of the data from the Cabman data terminal. “With our type of transport, driving and resting times are not often exceeded, so this is less important for us. We mainly get a lot of information from the live data from the terminal. This includes things like ‘Is the driver on time for the passenger?’ and ‘Where and when was a certain cancellation message sent?’.”
Security checks
For Taxi Van Meurs, trip cancellation is very important. “If a passenger who has not called in sick or cancelled does not show up and the driver cancels the trip, we make sure that the destination is informed. They often call the passenger to check that everything is all right. This provides an extra layer of security for the passenger.”
Complaints
Taxi van Meurs also uses the data from the data terminal for complaints about drivers, for example. “Occasionally, a passenger will complain about a driver. These can be simple complaints or more complex ones, such as bad behaviour. We then use the data from the terminal to check whether the routes have been driven correctly and whether there have been any unnecessary stops. This is very reassuring for the safety of both the driver and the passenger.”
Hourly registration
The data from the terminal is also used for accurate time registration. “For some time now we have been working with the block system or Maxflex in the Netherlands. We work with the block system, and with the data from the board computer we make sure that everything is correct.”