ComCab celebrates 40 years of serving London
Back in May 1974 a small dedicated team, backed by a hardworking core of 64 London taxi drivers, got together and formed one of the first modern radio taxi circuits in the capital.
They called it London Wide Radio Taxis, which later became ComCab. General Manager of ComCab London, Malcolm Paice commented: “It is a real testament to our drivers, staff and customers that ComCab continues to enjoy its position as one of the leading taxi circuits in London – even 40 years after its creation. Those early pioneer drivers worked long and hard to build the business up, and today we are carrying on their good work. Of course many of those friends and colleagues who were there at the beginning are sadly no longer with us, but we will honour their memories by continuing to be the biggest and busiest circuit in the capital.”
Today, ComCab is part of the UK wide CityFleet group and ComCab taxis can be found in Birmingham, Liverpool, Aberdeen and Edinburgh, as well as London. Tony Norris, who runs the ComCab Knowledge School, which was started up in 2005 added: “It’s clear to me that ComCab is the most forward thinking of the taxi circuits. They have led with technology, have consistently offered drivers the most work and they had the foresight to start up a free Knowledge School when the trade was struggling to bring new blood into the industry.
The ComCab Knowledge School is now one of London’s leading Knowledge institutions and I think it’s this kind of vision that has kept ComCab at the top of their game.” Over their 40 year history, ComCab has absorbed a number of other taxi businesses, including suburban fleets, DataCab and the innovative Zingo service- which was a forerunner of many of the modern day taxi apps.
Last year ComCab launched its own iPhone app and also acquired TaxiApp – a taxi booking smartphone app. Malcolm concluded: “40 years ago we used to take bookings on job dockets and despatch them over two-way radio and back then that was using technology the best we could. Today we take bookings online and via our apps, and we still operate the largest call centre in our sector, with work being despatched lightning fast over the cellular data networks. Our business has always used technology to make our customer’s lives easier but ultimately it is our drivers and their purpose built taxis that will deliver a world class service to Londoners and we hope that will continue for another 40 years.”
Courtsey of Taxicab News
