Maaxi app for licensed black cabs
A new app is recruiting London’s black cab taxi drivers with the promise that it can help them compete against Uber, Hailo and other car pick-up services.
Maaxi is designed to match up to five strangers travelling in the same direction, so that they can share a ride and split the bill.
Alternatively, users can opt to ride solo when they make their booking.
The start-up already has the support of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association.
Prices are determined by how many people the passenger shares with, affecting their journey time
Its backing is in large part down to the fact that Maaxi promotes itself as a black cab-only facility, unlike rival apps that also offer private hire cars.
As well as attracting extra business, the start-up says drivers will earn more money per ride if they carry more passengers than they would do via a traditional pick-up.
Under normal circumstances, black cabs do not charge extra for carrying two, three, four or five people rather than just one, but this is not the case with Maaxi.
“The taxi driver charges each person less than the meter fare but overall gets more, when aggregating all the partial fares – a true win-win,” explained Gabi Campos, the firm’s chief executive.
“The fares are distributed according to the distance and time the person spends in the taxi, so that if five people share a journey they split the fare for that portion in five, and if in a subsequent shared journey only four are sitting in the taxi, the fare is shared by four.
“Maaxi takes the hassle out of the hands of the driver and the passenger, and uses technology for everything to be automatically calculated.”
See more about the Maaxi App