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Overview
Description:
Taxi ranks can be hard to find, especially at night and if you are not familiar with the area. There are currently no apps on the market which show people the locations of taxi ranks. This is where the app using the data from the Fingal County Council Open Data improves the lives of Fingal’s citizens and visitors by enabling them make better informed choices regarding taxi facilities available in Fingal.
Research by Lansdowne Market Research, and accepted by the taxi spokesperson, Vinnie Kearns, found that taxi users can have concerns about their safety when travelling in taxis. This concern is felt by female passengers in particular.
The TaxiAngel system works very simply to address these concerns. Taxi drivers are given 3 smartphone barcode stickers to be placed in their car – 1 on the inside of the front seat passenger window, and then 1 on each of the back seat windows. Taxi drivers are given individual barcodes which are matched to the drivers indivdual taxi ID. The inside of the sticker has the barcode which the passenger scans using the TaxiAngel app on his/her smart phone. The outside/back of the sticker has the TaxiAngel logo allowing potential customers to know that this partitular taxi provides the TaxiAngel service.
This stickers are given out free to all taxi drivers. In todays current economic climate every extra sales feature helps make a taxi more appealing to customers, especially females travelling alone.
In the rare cases where a serious crime is committed, including crime perpetrated on the taxi driver or where a person may go missing, information scanned into the TaxiAngel database can be made available to the Gardaí. This is of benefit to both the driver and passengers, and taxi drivers will therefore encourage their passengers to scan the TaxiAngel barcode.
Also where a passenger has left something in the taxi, or believes that something might have fallen out of a pocket etc., TaxiAngel enables the passenger, going through the right procedures, to make contact with the taxi driver.
TaxiAngel in using Fingal County Council published open data, will improve the quality of life for the community, facilitate increased citizen participation in the services offered by Fingal County Council and will thereby assist economic development. The idea is extremely useful and delivers value to Fingal citizens and businesses. TaxiAngel is innovative, unique, inventive, appealing, practicable, and can be easily implemented.
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