Business Idea: SMS Taxi Mexico

Picture by bdebaca, amendments by me.

Having lived in London, UK for a year in 2005 I came to enjoy a great cab (taxi) service. Calling up a number you are asked for the addresses (your current location and where you are travelling to), how many passengers are travelling and (in case your number is hidden or you're calling from a landline) for a mobile number.

A minute later you get all the details for the journey: number plate of your cab, driver's name, when the cab will arrive and how much it is approximately going to cost (the prediction was always right at +/- 1GBP ).

Here in México, you can call a cab as well but you don't get any of these extra services (that would supposedly cost the company around 0,05 USD for the SMS) although here it would add even more value than in (relatively) safe London. Speaking to people here you could tell that especially girls don't feel comfortable at all taking a taxi on their own because of legitimate apprehension of abductions.

This is the service I imagine and for which people would be definitely willing to pay a premium:

When calling a cab, offer to send all the information described above (maybe not the price, as this involves a more sophisticated GPS enabled tracking system) and additionally the option to have the info send to two mobile numbers (yours and of a confidant) or an e-mail address. This way all the information is logged.

When the taxi arrives, the driver greets you, shows you his ID (and you check the number plate) and if everything's alright, you get in and have a safe trip.

Links:

Wirelessdevnet
Cranedragon
Texxi
Greencarcongress