Dial-a-Cab usually appear somewhere in the media each month. It seems that the world’s press, glossies and multi-media organisations now look at Dial-a-Cab as the representatives of the London Cab trade.

If you see mention of DaC in the press or TV - local or national level - let Call Sign know and it could be included in Media Watch…

Media Watch

The extremely prestigious magazine, Financial Director, chose as it’s interview subject for May, none other than Dial-a-Cab’s Financial Manager Alastair Hill. With no less than four pages of text and several photos, this can be considered a major interview and the acceptance of Dial-a-Cab as the major economic taxi organisation in this country’s transport field.
Headed by the old pun: ‘I had that Financial Director in the back of my cab once’ this huge interview had some rather original points. The magazine introduced the interview rather uniquely as: Alastair Hill, FD of radio taxi service Dial-a-Cab, is in an odd situation; he’s the only professional manager on the board, he relies on 1600 self-employed cabbies for revenue and he’s only got one product to sell.
Certainly, nobody reading this interview would be left with any doubt whatsoever that the London cab trade - and specifically Dial-a-Cab - had left the cloth cap and muffler image well and truly behind.

1600 Board Members

Any Dial-a-Cab driver of several or more years standing would smile at Alastair’s quote when, after explaining how we all ‘own’ the company, he goes on to say:
"There are occasions when it feels like we have 1600 other board members outside (Brunswick House) all with their own opinion as to how the

organisation should be structured and run - some more vociferous than others!" Alastair then adds: "…Undoubtedly, you get quite a number of interesting ideas but necessarily they tend to be to do with strict taxi industry matters and one has to try and overlay that with the wider picture of the clientele that we serve."
   Throwing a conundrum into the balancing act, Alastair goes on to describe our drivers as "…entrepreneurs pursuing profit who are also members of a service organisation. That," explained Alastair, " does give us something of an identity crisis because we really want to be bigger and better than our competitors. But the members just want us to offer the booking service."
   The interview never sees Alastair ill being anything but complimentary to Dial-a-Cab, it’s drivers and Board of Management, but he uses the opportunity to pass on some of his opinions. Writing about what many just think, Alastair points out that the London cab driver in general has failed to put him or herself into a position where they can benefit from their skill in a long-term way. They can go out and earn a reasonable living on a daily basis but, as Alastair explains to the FD interviewer Richard Young, "…In many other cities in the world, the (taxi driver’s) licence is a valuable commodity - it increases in value over the passage of time. In London", he added, "the driver does the Knowledge, gets his cab, drives for 40 years, retires, and if he hasn’t saved - there’s nothing else."
   As you would have expected from someone like Alastair who passionately believed in the attempted demutualisation process that failed to get off the ground last year, he explains how all drivers have a £50 share which after however many years with the Society, they just get

back when leaving. "In the meantime" he adds, "the organisation will have grown quite substantially to which the driver’s endeavours will have contributed and that," says Alastair, "seemed to me a highly anomalous situation. They (the drivers) build a business and when they leave they deserve to get a share in it. But the very structure of the organisation precluded that."

BoM Voting

Although the interview took place some time before publication of the last issue of Call Sign, Alastair has pre-empted the article about the way we vote for the BoM. As he says:
"The whole Board could be changed one year and I’ll (as the only non-elected BM) be sitting here with six total strangers." He adds "…that whatever they were doing on the Friday stops and similarly, a man who was driving a cab on Friday can pitch up and he is Sales and Marketing or whatever!"
The interview has a fascination for anyone connected with this company because Alastair Hill is accorded the respect that his job should command, yet rarely does in a journalistic world where anything below ICI is an also-ran. While his views may differ from that of some drivers and he would obviously like to see change, he says in conclusion: "The business has a very exciting and challenging future and it would be nice to be part of the team that realises that within Dial-a-Cab."

LISTINGS MAGAZINES

Now that summer is in full swing, listings magazines are suggesting places to go - and how to get to them. Time Out magazine suggests that readers use Dial-a-Cab when travelling around London.
Computeractive magazine ran a similar article this month, mentioning Dial-a-Cab’s Internet booking feature, allowing customers to get their cab by booking through Cyberspace.

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