With the summer holiday period now upon us, I am sure that many of you
will be off sunning yourselves in a far warmer climate than the one we are in
at the moment. Unfortunately, clients also go away and this usually means - at
least in my experience - that August is possibly the quietest period of the
year.
However, trip figures for the last period were on an upward turn
and hopefully we can look forward to further rises in workload as the year
progresses - with or without tube strikes!
St Bride Street Rank
I'm sure you all know that the joint accounts we now service with ComCab are
large corporate clients and that if you choose to sit on any of the designated
ranks - such as EC10 (Goldman Sachs) - you have equal right to any passengers
that choose to use this 'Rolling Rank' service. This particular rank has now
been relocated to St Bride Street and is normally very busy between the hours
of 9 and 9.30. This is the time when many Goldman Sachs employees tend to use
their charge cards for trips home, so it is well worth a look if you are in the
area.
Bear Stearns
We have recently acquired part of the Bear Stearns account on a
trial period. The account is situated in Canada Square by Canary Wharf and
apart from normal booked trips, Bear Stearns employees can also use a specially
designed charge card.
If a Bear Stearns employee approaches with a chargecard, you swipe
it, enter a pin number followed by the pick-up zone and then press 'Send' in
the normal
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way. The text message screen will then become displayed on your terminal and
prompts you to type in a trip code. The code for these particular street card
trips is Personal and after you have entered the eight digit word 'Personal',
press 'Send', 'On Board', 'A/D' and 'Clear Job' in the usual way.
Please remember that if there is a problem with the swipe facility
and as long as the card and pin number is correct, the card details can be
entered manually.
Bear Stearns employees are now being encouraged to use Dial-a-Cab
taxis from the rank at Cabot Square and this type of work is expected to
increase. Please avail them of the courtesy, civility and excellent
service that our Society is renowned for.
Marshalling
You will no doubt have noticed that there are far more messages
regarding marshalled events than there have ever been before. The past few
weeks have seen many and there are still more to come in our diary over the
next few weeks. We used to get this quantity at the Christmas party season, but
word about our marshalling service goes before us and we are now the
acknowledged leaders in this field.
One important fact though, our Marshal's have been well trained,
but without your excellent coverage the service would fall flat on its face. So
can I take this
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opportunity to thank all of you who support our Marshals, that support has
really been first class and I once again thank you all for it.
Credit Cards
Some drivers have been experiencing problems when requesting
additional authority for trips in excess of the automatic £50 total. Very
occasionally it appears that their 'On-Board' button disappears from the
terminal screen.
If you experience this problem, you should be able to solve it
by pressing the red 'Resync' button and that action should make the
'On-Board' button re-appear again.
Please remember that is also very important that the card
expiry date is also checked on all credit card trips to confirm that the
card is valid.
Dial-a-Cab Waiting List
The waiting list to join Dial-a-Cab is now rapidly growing which
underlines the feeling of
most drivers that we are the number one circuit. Although there was an
increase in subscribers last year, which was reported on in Call Sign, at
this particular time the size of our fleet is not being increased and until
such time that work dictates an increase in membership, the numbers will
remain constant.
I hope that those of you who have been on or are
shortly to go on your summer breaks had/have a great time and I look forward
to seeing you out on the road.
Allan Evans
DaC Marshalling / Training
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