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Recently I had the responsibility of chairing a Complaints
meeting that included seven drivers who had discovered a
loophole in the dispatch system and exploited it for their own
financial gain. Normally, nothing is ever written or spoken
about a complaints meeting. However, because of the severity of
the driver’s actions and the strong beliefs I have regarding the
fairness the Society operates under, I wanted all members to
understand what the problem with the system was, how the events
progressed that led to the controllers finding these drivers and
reassure everyone that the problem has been fixed.
Back towards the end of April, it came to the Board’s
attention from a driver that one evening, having done a soon
to clear into E14 and being given a queue position of 30+,
when clearing the trip they were immediately sent a trip offer.
Innocently the driver accepted the trip and carried out the
journey. While waiting for the client to get into their cab, the
driver thought how strange it was that they were offered a £30
trip that must have been rejected by so many drivers. As the
work was slow on E14, it just did not add up and something had
to be wrong.
When Allan Evens and I first heard of this, we just started
scratching our heads because in all the years we have had the
data dispatch system installed, nothing like this had ever
occurred before. Our IT department felt it was a bug that had
always been there, but which due to the downturn in work, had
only just appeared. Personally, I did not accept this because
even during the busy times after midnight there were always
quiet times when this would have occurred. Coincidently, it all
happened the same day that we altered E14O back to E14 and you
may recall messages sent out informing drivers that the soon
to clear function on E14 was no longer permitted.
Switching zones
Tom and Debbie Carter were informed immediately and quickly
got on the case to find out what was causing the glitch. The
Board felt that the chances of a driver clearing a soon to
clear trip and a trip being fired into the system at that
same time happening again was so remote, that we felt we had
sufficient time to find the problem, work on a fix, have the fix
sent to us for the IT department to test and install it on the
live system before any announcement needed to be made. About a
week to ten days later, a controller who by chance was
monitoring a driver regarding something totally different, found
on his logger that
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he was booking in to E1 and within 12/15 seconds booked into
E14. Having got a queue position in E14, he then immediately
booked back into E1 and kept doing this for a number of minutes.
While this driver was doing this, he did not receive any trip
offers but it raised suspicions by his actions that drivers were
now aware that there may be a problem within the system.
It was at this point that the controllers needed to
understand the intensity of the problem and how they could
monitor the fleet accurately enough to get answers. Then one
controller remembered that this particular driver was friendly
with one other driver. It was decided to view the other driver’s
logger to see if he was doing the same thing. Sure enough, the
logger proved beyond doubt he too was doing it, which meant the
problem within the dispatch system was far greater than at first
thought.
The difference with the second driver was that he was booking
into the same zone rather then booking in to two separate zones.
This driver was offered a trip from E14 while his queue position
was 17. He did the trip.
It was now obvious that the glitch was not solely attributed
to soon to clear trips, it was much more serious. Our IT
department informed Tom and Debbie Carter who speedily went
about finding a solution. It was still puzzling as to why, all
of a sudden, the system was allowing drivers to simultaneously
book into the same zone. If you remember, whenever you booked in
to the same zone, a message would appear on the screen informing
the driver they were already booked in the zone.
How to sort it out
There was now only one way to determine how serious the problem had
become and that was for the controllers to spend the majority of
their shift viewing every driver’s logger who had accepted a
trip from E14 and all other busy zones. They were checking to
see the driver’s queue position and if when they booked into the
zone, were they continually booking into the same zone every
12/15 seconds. Meanwhile, more drivers were contacting Board
members to inform them of the rumours that were starting to go
round. Some
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told of a trip they had been offered immediately they booked
into a zone and as before, could not believe so many drivers had
rejected it for them to be offered it. There were calls to the
Complaints Officer stating that certain individuals were going
to Canary Wharf and bragging about what they were doing and how
much money they were earning. Everyone who spoke to someone at
the office had their loggers checked to ensure they were still
working the system correctly. Despite constant messages being
sent out instructing drivers to book in correctly as the zones
were being monitored, only seven drivers were found over a
six-week period to be exploiting the system.
The rest is history; the culprits were issued with a
complaints letter and they immediately stopped doing it. They
all later attended a complaints hearing (except one) and the
Complaints Committee found them guilty of exploiting the system
for their own financial gain. Two later made appeals to the
Board of Management, who upheld the original decision. The
driver who chose to not attend his complaint hearing, decided to
leave the Society and had his equipment stripped out.
Interestingly, this driver’s complaint hearing was the very last
one of the day. I wonder if he was tipped off as to what the
others findings were?
For obvious reasons, as the Chairman of that meeting I cannot
report on the actual points of each hearing except to say that
what I found most extraordinary were the explanations each
driver gave to justify their actions. Before my eyes, I could
see that the days of our Society being known as a gentleman’s
circuit being eroded. I know drivers work for themselves,
but in my 25 years of being a member and having had first hand
experience of how drivers worked and putting themselves out to
complete the trips for the good of the Society, it was clear
that a small minority had only their own best interests in mind.
That’s not how this organisation was founded and it’s not how
this Board operates today.
I have written before and have stated while addressing
members when standing for election, I am adamant I will do
everything possible for this Society to operate fairly for every
member, from our method of dispatching the work, to treating
individuals the same when they need the help of the Society…
Keith Cain
Call Centre Manager
Driver Operations Manager
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