by admin | Jun 8, 2018 | Media
Yellow Cab of Colorado Springs announced Monday it will change its name to zTrip on Thursday as part of new strategy to combine smartphone hailing with its traditional taxi service to better compete with app-based riding sharing services Uber and Lyft.
Transdev On Demand, parent company of Yellow Cab of Colorado Springs, started using the zTrip name in 2012 and has adopted the new brand in all but two of the 18 U.S. cities where it operates, including Boulder in January 2016 and Fort Collins in June 2016. Yellow Cab of Denver, which is operated by Metro Taxi, also uses the zTrip app.
“zTrip is the new face of the taxi industry,” said Vanessa Keim, director of marketing for zTrip of Colorado Springs. “It is the best of both worlds. You can use an app to hail a ride, but you can still hail a cab on the street or call or go online to book a trip and we still provide wheelchair-accessible service.”
About 90 percent of Yellow Cab’s 145-vehicle fleet has been repainted with the zTrip logo; the rest of the vehicles will be retired by year’s end and thus will not be repainted, Keim said. The company also expects to receive 15 new vehicles later this week with the zTrip logo and colors, she said.
The company will host a celebration from 4:30-8:30 p.m. Thursday at Weidner Field, 6303 Barnes Road, home of the Colorado Springs Switchbacks soccer club, that will include free entertainment, beer from Pikes Peak Brewery, food trucks, face painting and a fundraising benefit for Jason and Janelle Graham, family members of a zTrip driver whose Houston home was destroyed last month by Hurricane Harvey.
The zTrip application allows users to book and cancel a trip, choose the type of vehicle they want to pick them up, get a rate quote upfront that does not include surge pricing used by other providers for peak demand periods, choose the payment form, get text message updates and track their driver until arrival, rate the driver and get customer support. The company said all of its drivers are licensed and work full time, are fully insured and have completed background checks.
“Unlike our competitors, we aren’t fighting background checks, we are embracing them,” zTrip President Bill George said in a news release on the name change. “We are committed to providing our drivers with the best working environment in the on-demand transportation sector.”
The company was founded by The Broadmoor hotel in 1927 to serve its guests and was acquired in 2012 by what its now Transdev On Demand. Springs Cab began serving the Colorado Springs area in 2011 and both Uber and Lyft expanded to Colorado Springs in 2014. Teller Cab serves the Ute Pass area, including Woodland Park.
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by admin | Jun 8, 2018 | Media
Jamie Campolongo is trying to close the gap between 11 seconds and two seconds.
That nine-second difference is an eternity in today’s world when potential customers are in a hurry to get a ride.
That was an unshakable fact that Mr. Campolongo, who has been president of Pittsburgh Transportation Group for 25 years, realized three years ago — not long after Uber and Lyft dramatically rolled into Pittsburgh.
The San Francisco-based ride-hailing apps suddenly could offer anyone a ride within minutes, which eroded taxi cabs’ market share while flouting state regulations that had granted Yellow Cab of Pittsburgh monopolistic authority.
In response, Mr. Campolongo did something remarkable for an industry infuriated by the newcomers’ audacity: He joined forces with the ride-hailing companies to legalize their operations.
“We knew Uber was going to get what they wanted,” Mr. Campolongo said in a recent interview in his office in Chateau. Instead of fighting his new rivals, “What we said was: How about a ‘me, too?’”
The result was passage of legislation, signed by the governor last year, that amended Pennsylvania transportation rules to permit ride-hailing companies. At the same time, the taxi company underwent a brand overhaul, developing its own mobile app and trading in the mustard-yellow, checkered boxy cabs for silver Toyotas, Hyundais, Kias and Dodges.
The old and stale Yellow Cab of Pittsburgh became hip and sleek zTrip — a ride-hail company informed by a 100 years of experience, but embracing a digital reality.
In some ways, zTrip is a mix of both. The company still owns a fleet, which today totals about 290 cars that can be leased on a daily, weekly or weekend basis by drivers. Though drivers pay for leases, the company covers insurance costs and maintenance.
An additional 100 to 150 people drive for the company using their own vehicles under the YellowZ banner, not unlike Uber and Lyft drivers. That group is designed to grow and shrink with demand.
The move to shift the business strategy appears to have paid off. Though he declined to provide specifics, Mr. Campolongo held up a chart showing sales up 30 percent from last year and fully recovering from declines when Uber and Lyft moved in.
In addition, trip completions are way up and complaints are way down. The silver zTrip cars can now be spotted across the city and are ubiquitous at major events. Mr. Campolongo plans to increase the fleet by 21 percent next year.
In the process, zTrip has had to work a little harder, and in different ways, to manage its workforce.
About half of drivers for zTrip today were with the company three years ago — meaning about half are new to working for a cab company. The company modified driver training to put more weight on customer service and small business management tips now that they are competing against other companies.
Tim Knight got the keys to his first zTrip vehicle in September 2016. He had never driven for a taxi company, but he did have experience in customer service and sales.
It took him less than a month to get a strategy sorted out: He would drive from 5 a.m. to 11 a.m., take a break from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m., then go back out for afternoon rush hour.
“Some of it was being in the right place in the right time,” he acknowledged.
Mr. Knight had no problem establishing a base of customers who would reach out to him for a ride. Soon enough, he was asked to be a mentor to other drivers. In April, he was hired on as the market expansion manager — a full-time position that brings on new zTrip drivers and serves as their liaison with the company.
Now that the job comes with the ease of technology and a cooler brand, recruiting is easier.
“Taxi cab drivers used to be the job of last resort,” Mr. Campolongo said. While Yellow Cab of Pittsburgh struggled with a shortage of cab drivers, zTrip can’t expand its fleet quick enough. “We have probably 85 people backlogged, waiting to get into training.”
On the customer side, Mr. Campolongo is candid about the issues that riders have had with taxi cabs over the years — problems that aided the rise of ride-hailing.
Users of ride-hail apps often cite horror stories of being stranded places or missing flights because taxi cabs failed to show. Stereotypes of cabs as musty, and even dangerous, pervaded the industry.
With the mobile app, Mr. Campolongo claims, better service has accompanied the cleaner image.
“I think people generally feel a little more comfortable in a taxi cab, but they were really uncomfortable with the service levels and response time,” he said. “Now that we’ve closed the gap in technology and comfort and the type of car we’re in, people are coming back.”
He read down a list of partnerships that zTrip, with deep roots and long-standing partnerships with other Pittsburgh businesses, has developed. The company even provides between 70 and 80 rides a day for students from nine local school districts and some private schools.
In many cities, the cab industry resisted ride-hailing and any change in regulations. The national taxi cab trade association has waged an ongoing campaign called “Who’s Driving You” that tallies criminal incidents allegedly involving Uber and Lyft drivers and asks for people to submit complaints.
Mike Pinckard, president of the 1,100-member Taxicab, Limousine & Paratransit Association, noted companies were put in a tough position by being forced to play by the rules while Uber and Lyft broke them.
But now that many states are adopting regulations governing ride-hailing, a small number of the taxi group’s more than 1,000 members are reaching out to capture that market.
Mr. Pinckard’s own company, Phoenix, Ariz.-based Total Transit, launched a ride-hailing alternative in January 2016 that currently gives 200,000 trips per month — or about 60 percent of the number of rides formerly performed by traditional taxis there.
“We believe that all of the key components are there to compete and win,” he said.
The challenge can be balancing the swelling demand for rides and ensuring drivers get enough trips to make money. In Pittsburgh, Mr. Campolongo said he is aiming to increase the zTrip fleet to 350 cars in 2018.
Cab drivers traditionally relied on steady trips to and from the airport, sometimes neglecting other areas
While those rides could bring in $35 and take an hour round-trip, the technology now gives drivers more pings throughout the region. Shorter rides can add up and usually mean more money for drivers, Mr. Campolongo said.
That’s where the nine-second gap comes in. The new version of zTrip’s app will send ride requests directly to drivers, without first sending the request through a central dispatch system.
Customers using the app to call a ride have no patience for even that brief delay.
“Before our technology can even tell them how long the ride will take to get there, they cancel,” Mr. Campolongo said. “There’s no patience. You’re off to the competitor.”
“Now, if we could just do something about that 2-star rating” on Google Reviews, he said with a laugh.
Daniel Moore: dmoore@post-gazette.com, 412-263-2743 and Twitter @PGdanielmoore.
by admin | Jun 8, 2018 | Media
Kansas City-based transportation company zTrip Inc. says it will boost the safety and security of passengers with the purchase of equipment from another local company.
ZTrip will buy 450 video event recorders from Lenexa-based Digital Ally Inc. The devices provide audio and video recordings of driver-passenger interactions, along with information on the location, speed and maintenance of vehicles.
Founded in 2016, zTrip offers taxi and ride-share services in 18 cities. The company plans to end this year with operatins in 30 U.S. cities and affiliate in more than 16 international cities.
That’s big for Digital Ally, because zTrip has named its video event recorders as preferred equipment for the zTrip fleet.
Bill George, CEO of zTrip, said in a release that the purchase represents his company’s overall safety strategy, “one that others in our industry talk about but do not make significant investments in the underlying technology to provide the safety that drivers and passengers want.”
By Brian Kaberline – Editor, Kansas City Business Journal
May 14, 2018, 7:58am