Paul Wait, commercial director at iGo, a platform offering TMCs a single source for taxi management
For travel managers, ground transport has always been a minefield of off-policy journeys, paper receipts and unvetted suppliers. The market is highly fragmented, with a variety of options to choose from 每 be it taxi, train or car rental 每 and an even larger list of suppliers.
Despite advances in technology, it is still a huge challenge to manage bookings and spend with these suppliers individually, while ensuring employees are following their company＊s ground transport policies.
Covid-19 has also brought fresh duty of care concerns for travel managers, who need to ensure employees reduce the risk of infection when travelling for work purposes.
What the industry requires is a solution that will make life easier for travellers when they use ground transport, while also providing the added levels of control that travel managers are crying out for.
You can see the scale of the challenge when you look at the private hire and taxi market. During the pandemic, taxis have become one of the safest ways for business travellers to get from A to B 每 you have just one driver and one passenger, or ＆bubble＊, per vehicle, and stringent hygiene standards are being met by many operators.
As such, private hire vehicles and taxis could play a central role in companies＊ travel programmes as we get the wheels of business travel turning again.
But the sector is one of the most disjointed elements of the ground transport landscape, with more than 15,000 licensed operators in the UK alone 每 of which the largest 100 don＊t even make up a fifth of the market. Individually vetting and opening accounts with each of these operators is simply not a viable option for travel managers.
But technology can simplify things by consolidating the market into a single source, where employees can gain access to a range of fully vetted vehicles to suit each traveller＊s needs 每 from taxis and executive cars to chauffeur driven vehicles.
Access to this type of single source platform would also provide the scale necessary to bring together pre-book and on-demand options. This means a business traveller could use a pre-booked private hire vehicle to get from their home to a meeting, but order an on-demand taxi, via an app, to take them home as and when required 每 all through one platform and under a single travel policy.
To draw an analogy from the accommodation industry, rather than booking direct with individual hotel brands you can book via a TMC and gain access to a huge range of options to fit the disparate needs of employees. This saves travel managers＊ time and improves the traveller＊s experience. Technology is allowing this same approach to be applied to ground transport.
A single source platform can also help travel managers overcome one of their biggest issues when it comes to ground transport 每 a lack of control. When employees hail their own taxi off-policy, travel managers can＊t control how much they spend, the route they take, the type of vehicle they use, or the hours during which they travel. This can lead to disagreements over expenses, as well as administrative errors and overspending.
A cashless and contactless method of booking taxis, accessed through a corporate accounts portal, would help travel managers achieve far greater control over spend while also enabling them to implement corporate policies and travel restrictions. This can all happen in real time, preventing employees from overspending or booking a journey they aren＊t authorised to take, or prompting them to seek approval from the relevant manager.
These controls can play a crucial role for travel managers who are looking to mitigate the risk of travel during the pandemic. It would allow employees to use taxis for short journeys, where they may have previously relied on public transport instead. Travel managers could allocate a fixed amount each month for employees to use on taxi journeys along specified routes within set working hours.
Policies could also extend internationally. This means, even when travelling in a new city or town for business, employees can still use a single source to book their journey, knowing all restrictions and checks will be applied, just as they are at home.
This type of ground transport solution would provide that final piece in the puzzle for travel managers. Having that single source to manage taxi and private hire bookings would mean they would finally gain the control they need and provide huge efficiency gains, greater transparency and guaranteed compliance. ?
These solutions have been a long time coming for ground transport, but they are now out there in the market and it＊s time for travel managers to begin investigating how technology can greatly enhance their processes, and, crucially, provide a better experience to the travellers they care for.