Call Sign July 2008 - Page 17 - NATALIE’S HOT GOSSIP FROM THE SALES DEPT…

*DaC Sales Exec Natalie Ezekiel keeps Call Sign* readers informed with updates… NATALIE’S HOT GOSSIP FROM THE SALES DEPT…**
Hi all… What a month May has been, with business - just like the weather - up and down. Despite the fact that there have been 2 Bank holidays, school half term and the media constantly telling us that jobs and spending cuts are being made across the corporate sector, we are still receiving account applications and have opened over 40 new accounts this month (2 a day) … not bad! In my last report, I told you I had been busy with a number of proposals. I’ve been invited by two of these companies to attend the second stage and hope to hear soon and will let you know how we get on. Another proposal I completed at the very beginning of the year was for an existing client whose contract was due to end in March. This was EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development). After submitting	the proposal, Account Manager Stewart Byrne and myself were asked to attend a follow-up meeting and I’m happy to announce that we have retained their business and the contract has been extended. Other proposals that have been submitted over the past months are still on-going. Back in April, Denise Zemma - Account Manager for JPMorgan - and myself were asked to participate in their travel show, which we attend twice a year. Joining us this year was the DaC Director of IT John Bankes, together with our MIS Administrator Jason O’Brien. Dial-a-Cab Chairman Brian Rice also paid a visit. All kinds of suppliers attend - from catering to airlines - and as always we were delighted to take part. The basis for this is to meet PAs, Secretaries and Heads of Departments to ensure they are fully aware of how to use our On	-line Booking System, how to generate MIS Data and to ensure they are taking full advantage of all the services we provide. The event also gives JP Morgan staff a chance to meet with their Account Manager and to discuss any service issues or queries. Apart from the giveaways, we ran a prize quiz on London. All completed entries were put into a draw and the winner was given a very nice prize. As always, it was a great success and the Dial-a-Cab stand was extremely popular. Hopefully, the next time you hear from me, work would have picked-up following the two Bank holidays and news of the outstanding proposals will be reported…. Until next time Natalie

*"Sunset Strip" has now handed his badge and bill back to the PCO after 50 years - much of it with ODRTS. These are his memories…* FIFTY GREEN YEARS…
Prototype Taxis Well, we have a new Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, who has said - indeed promised - that he will do away with that twice yearly money maker for some… sorry I mean the twice yearly safety examinations or overhauls! Boris has also announced TfL’s part in a Łmillion project to fund work on a hybrid, stop-go taxi for London. This has been examined and worked on in the past by some of Europe and Japan’s largest automotive groups in the 70s, 80s and 90s. So far, with the same results and conclusions. These systems, and those prototype taxis, could not be made to stand up to the demands of the real life strains endured by the taxis of London. Also, and at the same time, comply with the conditions of fitness required by the PCO! An additional and very important factor to the automotive groups was that the numbers didn’t add	up. They would be unable to make any money as the costs of producing, together with finance needed to support and fund the projected high costs of meeting warranty claims for these hybrid taxis, was so high. In addition, the retail selling price would also have to be massively subsidised if they were to be competitive with the standard London LTI built taxicab. So they would lose money on every new taxi sold and even so, these new breed of taxis would still cost far more to buy, maintain and operate than the traditional London taxi. But everyone knows better and more about taxis than London’s thousands of taxi owner-drivers and operators. That is why we are seldom asked what we want or what could be done to make a better taxi. And as for asking the mechanics that maintain, repair and service our taxis, well that would be far too obvious, wouldn’t it? In the bad / good old days, none	of us were asked, or even listened to. At least now, since the early 1990s, LTI have implemented a ‘Listening programme’ - to which many Call Sign drivers have been to - and to many owner-drivers surprise, they do seem to listen… well some of the time! To explain in more detail, I am going to ask Alan Fisher if he will let me tell you about the EuroTaxi that was to be based on a Volkswagen and another that was built as a prototype utilising a small capacity Daihatsu diesel engine to act as an electricity generator to supply motive power to an ultra-low emissions taxi. This was imaginatively called the EuroElec Taxi project. Both these projects started life in the 1980s, as did the Metro-Cammell-Weymann Metrocab, which in its original production version had exhaust emissions that would never be acceptable or passable today, though its emissions turned out to be the least of its problems… Sunset Strip

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