New ‘Going Home’
procedure
Further to the AGM
proposition being passed to bring back
the old ‘going home’ facility, we are
now ready to implement the change. By
now, many of you would have seen and
read the instruction sheet sent out and
I would like use this article to remind
you all how the procedure works.
Disable Reject (CODE 3 as it is known) operates when you have
been signed on for a minimum of 8 hours
and carried out a minimum of three
credit rides. The system will now offer
you all trips with a destination apart
from those trips that are genuine as
directed.
You can then reject as many trips as you wish within the hour. Once
you have accepted a trip, the system
will then prevent you from signing back
on for a minimum period of six hours.
Exceptions
Exceptions will be EC5 and E140. Drivers
will not be permitted to engage into
Code 3 whilst booked into EC5 or E140.
Should you decide you would like to BID
for a trip in either of these zones you
can, but the trip offer will not show
you a destination.
Scrubs
In the event you accept a trip and are
unfortunate to be scrubbed off, then the
scrub counts as your accepted trip.
There is no going back into the queue
and a controller cannot override the
system to help you. This risk must be
taken into consideration before using
the facility. If then after one hour you
have NOT accepted a trip, the system
will automatically turn your code 3 off
and you will be allowed to continue
working as normal.
E140 to be
non-physical
With effect from 1 March 2006, the E140
rank will become non-physical. The new
rule for booking in to E140 is that a
driver must be within one of the
Docklands Security roadblocks around
Canary Wharf. Anyone not booking in
correctly will have to answer a
complaint. E14C and E14S will remain
unchanged during daytime hours and all
other times and regulations remain
unaltered. Information sheets on E140
and the revised Code 3 will be available
at |
the Driver’s reception and from the
Marshal at Cabot Square.
Reject penalty altered
The Board have also discussed driver
service levels experienced on all
shifts. Trip rejects have progressively
risen and as there seems no let up in
our workloads for this year, a decision
has been taken to alter for a trial
period, the penalty imposed for
rejecting credit work from a primary
zone within one hour.
Currently a driver can reject three credit account trips offered
from within a primary zone and if the
fourth trip offer is rejected he/she
will be placed at the bottom of the
queue. With effect of 1 March 2006, the
number of credit account ride rejects
permitted within one hour from a primary
zone will increase to five and if the
sixth offer is rejected, the driver will
be booked off for a period of 10
minutes.
This decision was not taken lightly and takes into consideration
the operation within the call centre to
advise clients of our difficulty in
allocating their booking to a driver.
Not many of you would be aware that as
soon as a trip has had six rejects or
has not been allocated to a cab within
four minutes, a controller will not only
send out messages to cover the trip, but
it will be sent to a ringback
telephonist to contact the client and
advise them of the situation, thus
giving them the choice to either make
other arrangements or instruct us to
keep trying to match the trip. All the
time this process is happening, the trip
is still being offered and waiting in
BIDs to be covered.
It is common for controllers to view trips with rejects reaching as
high as 20, 30, 40 or even higher at
times. Obviously, when trips take a long
time to cover, clients criticise our
service. The more trips unmatched means
more clients have to be kept |
constantly updated as to
the
status of their trip. The numbers of
outbound calls are on the increase and
at one time we could always use a rule
of thumb and say that the number of
outbound calls would be at around 25 to
30% of the inbound calls. Now our stats
show this figure has risen to levels of
55 to 65%.
Whilst I am not suggesting that this is totally contributed to
trips not being covered, but consider in
addition the increase in the number of
AARs that are requested due to parking
restrictions. With the various other
types of information such as D/As and
address queries that have to be dealt
with, it’s no wonder that despite the
increase in call out telephone line
positions and additional staff, response
times are increasing.
I have spoken many time to drivers about the reasons why they, as
individuals, reject trips and what is
very clear is they reject a trip because
it does not suit them to do it. While I
understand this way of thinking, I am
afraid to say it is having a detrimental
effect on the service provided by the
Society as a whole.
In our call centre, controllers are doing all they can to help by
sending out messages about the areas
where trips will fire out. This advance
information is starting to help
coverage, especially in the early
mornings and outer zones. On occasions
when trips have become difficult to
cover, they have been made non-rejectable
just to ensure the client gets a
vehicle.
The Board anticipated before Christmas how busy we would be getting
in the future and that future is now
upon us. I urge you all to seriously
look at the service you give before the
client is picked up. Clients view each
and everyone us a part of the Society.
If the Society as a whole is to maintain
its high standards of service, then we
must all keep in mind what the client
expects.Keith
Cain
Driver Operations / Call
Centre
Manager |
