TECH: New Vendor Aims to Automate Ground Transport Mgmt.
The Beat ~ a travel business newsletter
Jun 02, 2008 - <em>Republished with permission from The Beat, a ProMedia.travel publication.</em><br /><br /><strong>Danbury, Conn., 6/2/08 10:45 AM</strong> With plans to tackle a highly fragmented market, ambitions to connect with travel management companies and online booking tools, and a familiar name as its non-executive chairman, RideCharge seeks to bring automation and transparency to ground transportation.<br /><br />The privately owned start-up, which recently struck a deal with Concur, enables corporations to apply travel policies, automated processes and preferred vendor partnerships to taxi, sedan, limousine and airport shuttle services. Particularly in the case of taxis, such transportation is largely a cash business, vulnerable to fraud and usually devoid of meaningful management controls. By using the RideCharge Web site, mobile platform and/or integration in Concur's travel and expense systems, enterprises can automate ground transportation bookings, payment and expense reporting.<br /><br />Apart from his role at Concur, where he serves as executive vice president for research and development, Tom DePasquale is RideCharge's non-executive chairman and lead investor.<br /><br />RideCharge president Sanders Partee said the company's client roster now is "in the dozens," and expects it to grow this year as it aligns with TMCs and other booking tool providers. "The Concur software just began connecting us on May 16," he said. "With travel agencies, we rode in on the relationship with Concur and are making progress with all the big ones to support clients who are non-Concur."<br /><br />The concept allows travelers to pre-book ground transport options or use an on-demand system through mobile devices (including such "smart" phones as Blackberries and Windows-based devices, soon to be followed by functionality for other devices using the Palm operating system). Enterprise clients can set business rules stipulating the choices travelers can and cannot book.<br /><br />Reservations are booked directly into the dispatch systems of transportation providers, primarily the "larger providers who can support a larger volume of traffic," and therefore are more likely to have invested in the necessary in-car and dispatch system technology. "Phone calls and faxes and all that are just not acceptable," Partee said. "We need a deep data connection."<br /><br />After reservations are made, RideCharge sends to travelers itinerary information, including provider contact details, and also can send SMS text messages when cars are dispatched. A future enhancement, using GPS tracking, would allow travelers to find out where the car is and the estimated arrival time.<br /><br />In terms of payment, taxi rides traditionally end with "a crappy-looking receipt, where the only thing legible is your credit card number," Partee said. "A taxi driver will carry around a piece of paper with my credit card information on it from one to 14 days until he turns it in. That is the point of identity theft that is a risk in this market," he said. "With our system, the taxi driver never sees the credit card number."<br /><br />Instead, users on any mobile phone can "indicate to RideCharge how much they want to pay for the trip," Partee explained. "RideCharge forwards that information to the dispatch system itself, which then comes back out to the car and tells the driver, 'Yes, you have been paid $32 by the guy in the back.' There are no receipts to lose."<br /><br />When rides are over, e-receipts can be e-mailed to travelers and/or sent automatically to Concur for import into the expense tool. "Padding taxi receipts is extremely common," Partee said. "Let's not call it corporate fraud; let's call it 'I don't remember.' Self-reported taxi receipts anecdotally are 30 to 50 percent higher than the actual expense."<br /><br />Electronic, documented expense processing cost savings--rather than "taking slips of paper, taping them down or stapling them to a bigger slip of paper, and faxing them in and having someone verify them"--add to the benefit of accurate taxi fares.<br /><br />In addition to online booking tools and TMCs, expense systems offer another avenue to pick up potential clients. For big corporations, Partee explained, RideCharge would say, "We want your business, PeopleSoft manages your expense reporting. Let's talk about integrating with that system for you in such a way that RideCharge can make it available to the next company that is a PeopleSoft shop."<br /><br />For this year, RideCharge is levying a $1.50 "documentation fee" for each trip. Partee said the "regular" price would be $1.95. He also said that while the company has not offered volume discounts, "There's always a deal to made, right?" But thus far, "only the biggest, nastiest travel managers, who try to squeeze every nickel out of everybody, have even mentioned the cost as an issue."<br /><br />RideCharge is looking to expand its service to Canada and the United Kingdom, and use affiliate networks of existing sedan partners to link customers to services in cities around the world.<br /><br />~ David Jonas<br /><br />© Copyright 2008 ProMedia.travel LLC.<br />Unauthorized email forwarding is a violation of federal copyright law.<br />