Young Entrepreneurs Launch Taxi Booking App
HITCH Limited have introduced Bermuda’s first pre-arranged taxi booking app. Available on the Apple App Store and Google Play, HITCH puts passengers in direct contact with drivers, providing “on-demand, safe, and reliable service”.
A spokesperson said, “HITCH is an app developed by a group of young entrepreneurs specifically for the Bermuda taxi industry, and after over 18 months of development they are pleased to introduce it to Bermuda. Registration is simple for both drivers and passengers, requiring only basic information to join the system.
“When in need of a taxi, customers can easily book through HITCH and see all taxis available in the area, and use features such as estimated arrival times and fare estimates. HITCH gives passengers information on the driver and vehicle picking them up, ensuring that they get into the right taxi in a timely manner.
“Fares can also be split between account holders, and with all billing done electronically. HITCH eliminates the need to carry cash when taking a taxi, and with gratuities included, you don’t have to worry about anything other than getting to your destination. Passengers and drivers can also leave ratings, ensuring our system is used by friendly and courteous drivers.
“With over 50 drivers registered and over 100 bookings completed, HITCH has already begun to show how great an asset it will be to the Bermuda taxi industry. HITCH can be downloaded by visiting the Apple App Store for iPhone, or the Google Play store for android mobile devices. There is no cost to download the app and it can be used immediately after registering.
“For the month of December, HITCH will be offering a $15 discount on a customer’s first ride when they use the promo code ‘RIDEHITCH’ while booking.
“You can find more information about HITCH by visiting our website, www.hitch.bm or one of our social media pages. Facebook: hitchbm; Twitter: hitchbm; Instagram: hitch.bm”
The passenger app is available in the Google Play Store for android devices while the iPhone version is available in the iTunes Store. The Play Store link for the app for licenced taxi drivers is here and the drivers’ iPhone version can be found here.
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Very nice idea! Slapping my head wondering why I didn’t think of this!
Wonderful. Sounds like it will be great. Good job gentlemen. Well done.
hmmmm Sounds like UBER….. Now lets see how reliable the Taxi drivers are
The exact same thing as UBER! Taxi drivers here will be taxi drivers lol… nice concept but probably won’t work in the long run! Great job though gentlemen!
Uber doesn’t use taxis. This does.
That’s the rub isn’t it – great app, great idea, but part of the success of Uber is a massive pool of hungry taxi drivers. Are our taxi drivers up to the challenge?
Completely different business model to Uber, as the taxi drivers here are still registered taxi drivers. With Uber, anyone can use their personal car and register.
Same thing….just using the taxi drivers here lol.
Uber is very different, the rates change depending on availability and demand. This app uses registered taxi drivers who are subject to fare regulations.
Bro Chris will soon be along to show you guys what the Yunyun thinks about all this. It will be an interesting learning experience for these young entrepreneurs.
Good luck!
Nice app but in the long run it cost more. More credit card bills.
Taxi, HITCH and credit card fees. Make it so a customer can pay cash as per normal.
I’ve already used it, and it works very well. I wish them all the best with it.
Were all the taxis at Ocean View?
I’ve used it, and will use it again. In my experience a taxi came within minutes. And you know ihe taxi is coming, and exactly where it is on its journey to you. It’s a great use of technology.
I hope this is better than recent service I’ve received when booking taxi’s the old fashioned way. I booked a taxi at the weekend, over 2 hours in advance of when I needed it, and after it being almost an hour late in picking me up I gave up waiting. When I called to ask why I was told that no taxi’s were available yet, despite me booking over two hours in advance.
sadly even if you book in advance it is not promised that you will get a taxi. Its up to the drivers if they want to accept the job or not and sadly most times they dont. The taxi dispatchers struggle with this on a daily. And alot of times during peak hours there might not be many taxi drivers out and about. Taxi drivers make their own hours so no one wants to come out and work at a certain hour then it will always be a struggle to get a taxi. Those poor dispatchers have to deal with it all.
I completely understand and do feel badly for the dispatchers, who bear the brunt of customer complaints, however if no one can find a taxi for me, with 2 hours notice, from one central location to another, then we have a problem. I wouldn’t have minded so badly if they’d called to say that there were no taxis available, but I was just left sitting at home for an hour waiting.
If you had this app, you would have had an option.
no need for an expensive overbearing GPS system.
Great idea but sadly Taxi Drivers in bermuda probably wont be very helpful. As soon as a short distance job comes through the app no one will pick up. I personally work for one of the Taxi companys and thats our biggest problem THE DRIVERS! The government needs to step in and give these taxi drivers some more rules and regulations so we can have a better efficient taxi service. The drivers are lazy, rude, and don’t want certain jobs because the distance is “too short”. Lets just hope that they can find some reliable drivers.
The driver doesn’t know the distance when he accepts the job. So there goes that theory.
But the point of being an uber driver is that basically anyone with a licence and a 4 door saloon car can do it.
That’s what creates the greater market, drivers numbers are much higher.
But this is only open to existing drivers, which means you have more visibility of where your car is rather than relying on the desperately poor despatch system. And you can pay easier, but that’s about it
For this to truly work, Bermuda has to get with the rest of the world and deregulate the driver licensing. Caught in the past again Bermuda….
Credit to the young men on their achievements but for those of you who are unaware with the rest of the world, this is nothing new. Has anyone heard of Uber? and I am in no way trying to throw shade on these gentlemen’s accomplishments I just want to inform those that this is nothing new and could have been in Bermuda ages ago.
Is this legal..???? Dispatchers are licensed
lets give this great app a chance . There are some hungry taxi drivers . Hats off to these young men .
Love the idea. Plan on using this. Best of luck to these young men
As other have stated…very similar to Uber in concept. The beauty is that as they stated this isn’t competing with the taxi operators but instead receive buy-in from them so essentially they’d be giving taxi drivers greater incentive to accept fares and more accountability for the fares that they do accept. I’m hoping that the app includes a review component as well…this will really keep the customer and taxi operator on their toes. This will also reduce the amount of people skipping on taxi fares and hopefully make things safer for the drivers as they’d no longer need to carry cash with them.
Just wondering how this will affect the dispatcher services? Anyways..good job guys for re-purposing an existing idea and wishing you all the success in the future
The dispatch guys need a serious wake up. Bermuda doesn’t deserve such poor standards.
Congrats to those involved!! Everything has trial and error and hiccups but with the right push it will be a success. People need to stop seeing the negative in everything.