Taxis Verts Belgium merges with Sherlock client Husk and migrates its entire national car fleet to Sherlock
- 95% auto-allocation
- 30% reduction in time taken to reach the pick-up
- 50% increase in IVR bookings
Background
Husk (formerly CarASAP) launched in Brussels in 2015 as a credible alternative taxi business for corporates looking for a reliable and professional service at a reasonable price point.
The company launched with just a handful of vehicles and quickly grew to 30 vehicles within the first year of trading. Having visited Addison Lee in London and seen their proprietary technology platform (Shamrock) operating in real-time, Husk owner Jonathan and Head of Operations Samy, believed passionately in the need for good technology to underpin and help drive the success of the business.
As a result, they were quick to implement Shamrock’s sister solution, Sherlock Taxi.
Following several successful years of growth, Husk was purchased by Lab Box (a Belgian corporate group quoted on the Stock Exchange) and in March 2022 merged with Taxis Verts, the leading taxi company in Brussels and the surrounding area, which has also been acquired by Lab Box.
Jonathan & Samy became CEO & COO respectively, of the entire group Husk/Taxis Verts.
Before being acquired by LAB BOX, Taxis Verts used another dispatch system which was owned by their previous owner-company.
Their previous system was not meeting all their needs and the business was dealing with several operational issues including:
- Lack of clarity around how the system allocated jobs to drivers
- Difficulty accessing data from within the system
- Customer app not very user-friendly and prone to crashing / cancelling bookings if trips couldn’t be allocated straight away
Husk’s team, led by Jonathan and Samy knew that Sherlock would be able to help Taxis Verts operate more efficiently and give the business the technology needed to move forward.
Solution & Implementation
Taxis Verts has a fleet of thousands of vehicles so to ensure a smooth transition to Sherlock, our technical team spent time with the operational team at Taxis Verts prior to implementation.
During this time, our team was able to learn more about the individual processes of the business and how to utilise Sherlock to maximise operational efficiency.
Taxis Verts’ teams were trained before launching Sherlock to ensure they had a good understanding of how the system worked prior to using it in a real-time environment.
The go live was divided into two stages: the first stage involved the phone system and switching from Amazon to Callable, provided by a Sherlock telephony partner. To prepare for this stage, the onsite team worked with Taxis Verts to test telephony and IVR flow in advance.
The second stage was the system switch which was scheduled for 2am mid-week as this would be a very quiet time for the business.
The team utilised the quiet overnight period to ensure that everything was working correctly, and any system tweaks required could be made before the peak of rush hour.
In the morning, only telephone bookings were taken via Sherlock initially; IVR was switched on at 10am and customer apps at 11am. This staggered approach ensured the team could resolve any issues without being overwhelmed by simultaneous changes.
Outcomes
Since launching with Sherlock, Taxis Verts are now able to monitor key metrics as the data is easily accessible from the system which is something they didn’t have access to previously.
By comparing data from the initial launch to a snapshot following the first three months of using the system, the company can review valuable metrics such as the percentage of bookings which are made via an automated channel (such as app, IVR, web) rather than the call centre, which is consistently reaching over 60%. IVR bookings alone have increased by over 50%.
Taxis Verts can monitor various metrics, not just booking channels. Automation has increased with 95% of trips automatically allocated to a driver, meaning that a controller does not need to manually dispatch the work. The average time taken for the driver to get to the pick-up has reduced from seven minutes to five minutes.
Since launching, Sherlock has been integrated with Collecto through Taxis Verts to provide rideshare services. This revenue stream of the business is aimed at targeting passengers travelling home late at night who may want the option to car share with other travellers to get home safely. The new rideshare engine groups suitable trips together to provide an efficient and cost-effective solution to passengers.
”Technology serves our mission which is to bring more fluidity into modern cities, and to make our customers' journeys as comfortable and reliable as possible,”
Taxis Verts
“The Technical team and I were onsite at Taxis Verts to support during the implementation and switchover process. It is really useful to be onsite with clients for large installations so that drivers and office staff feel supported and we can ensure the system is optimised correctly,” Adam Ross,
2024 Update –
Taxis Verts and SNCB
In 2023, Taxis Verts was awarded the national contract for providing taxi services to SNCB, Belgium’s national rail operator. As part of this contract, Taxis Verts needed to partner with other suppliers across Belgium to ensure that trips could be completed outside of their core operating area of Brussels. This involved integrations with third party supplier systems and the ability to send trips to those partner fleets and their dispatch providers.
Sherlock was notified of the new contract in September 2023. The new partnership with SNCB was launched at midnight on 1st January 2024, meaning that there were only three months to scope, develop and test the new features and integrations required for the system.
An integration with dispatch provider, Austrosoft was completed as well as integrations with MS Identity Platform and MS Azure. Some of the partner fleets didn’t have any dispatch system in place at all, so to avoid laborious manual job sharing, Sherlock’s technical team created a custom workflow for job execution via these smaller fleets.
Taxis Verts was committed to providing SNCB users with a similar user experience to that of their previous partner which meant that Sherlock needed to make adjustments to the web portal such as developing new filtering functions, new downloadable reports, the option to create contract jobs, advanced visibility over job execution history and single sign-on (SSO) via MS Identity Platform.
As the timeframe to complete the work was three months, Sherlock needed to effectively prioritise the development work required. Working with Taxis Verts, the work was split into ‘essential’ for 1st January launch and ‘later delivery.’ Some critical requirements that would require a longer time to develop were met with temporary solutions for the launch – for example, a workaround solution to SSO with MS Identity Platform was implemented for the launch as that integration required more time to be completed.
To ensure a smooth launch, Yaroslav, Taxis Verts’ Sherlock Project Manager was onsite in Belgium over New Year’s Eve to support the team and assist with a smooth transition. He was also supported remotely by additional Sherlock staff and a member of the QT (testing) team was available throughout the 1st January to manage any urgent changes that needed to be made.
The launch of the new service was so successful, Taxis Verts’ Strategic Program Director remarked,
"Success is not just about meeting deadlines; it's about exceeding expectations with dedication and teamwork. Taxis Verts is thrilled with Sherlock's remarkable ability to implement the SNCB project in under three months, showcasing not only their technical expertise but their unwavering commitment to support, even on New Year's Eve. Together, we drive towards a brighter future."