Road XS offers many helpful features. One of the most popular is finding the nearest available driver. This article explores our innovative feature, why it’s important in saving passengers’ money and the role it plays for transport and community transport providers in their day-to-day activities.
Key Benefit
In using the nearest available driver feature in Road XS, not only are you saving yourself hours of time each week, but you are also saving your passengers’ money and reducing driver costs.
What is the Nearest Available Driver Feature?
Unlike other transport software which relies upon postcode areas and addresses for passenger and driver locations or out-of-date mapping software, Road XS goes further and pinpoints passengers, drivers and locations on a map using the latest mapping directly from Google. You can also pinpoint locations such as drop-off points, entrances, hospital locations and more by using our fully integrated What3Words capability and we even offer the ability to virtually walk around outside any location in Road XS. This is really helpful for drivers who might not have visited a location before. By pinpointing locations, you improve the safety, and security of both passengers and drivers, and in the event of an accident, the GPS tracking keeps everyone safe and in communication with the main office.
Why Finding the Nearest Available Driver Matters
By pinpointing the nearest available drivers and vehicles for a journey you are doing a number of things which benefit your transport services and passengers. These include:
- Saving your passengers money for “dead miles”
- Reducing transport costs by reducing driver fuel cots
- Ensuring the right vehicle shows up for the job (not a smart car for a wheelchair)
- Keeping your drivers happy by not ringing them when unavailable nor doing journeys which are too far for them
- Only working with drivers who have their records up to date
- Ensuring drivers are getting a fair share of journeys automatically
- Allowing drivers to work when they want to
With Road XS technology behind you, not only can you get greater accuracy, but so you can involve more drivers from your community too. It also removes county borders from the lookup equation too, meaning you can get more journeys completed by your volunteer drivers (which is especially helpful if you only have a small team of them).
The nearest available driver feature allows Road XS users to simply press a button, and all local, available drivers in the local vicinity to the passenger will show up. This includes showing how far away they are from the passenger’s location and also how busy the drivers are on the day. We also provide accurate mileage estimates which save transport operators time every day ringing drivers who would be busy on the day or already doing other journeys. With Road XS, you are presented immediately with a list of real-time, available drivers for the passenger’s journey, the nearest available showing at the top of the list.
Road XS gives you the information you need to see, right when you need it.
Personalising Drivers to Passenger Requirements
Most transport providers have more than one driver available to them. If you run a community car scheme you could even have hundreds. Each of these drivers will likely be volunteering their time to support their local community. This means they are not available all day every day, but at times that are convenient to them. They will also drive vehicles which are suitable for some passengers and not for others.
That’s why as part of the driver lookup process we check the driver’s vehicle mobility requirements too. It’s of no use to a passenger with a wheelchair having a driver with a Smart Car show up for their journey, the wheelchair just wouldn’t fit in the vehicle (OK, maybe with difficulty!).
Equally, if a passenger or driver has had a falling out, or a passenger has had an unpleasant experience with a driver, they can be blocked from providing future journeys. This prevents those awkward conversations too! With Road XS, the driver just wouldn’t show up on the list again for any of their future journeys.
Personalising the Journey Experience for Drivers
Whilst Road XS will find the nearest available driver to the passenger, it can also tailor the experience for your volunteer drivers too. Each of your drivers via the Road XS driver portal can set how far they wish to drive. They can quickly and easily set their availability too. This means drivers won’t show up for journeys where mileage exceeds their maximum travel distance nor when they’re doing something else that morning or afternoon either. Drivers can also turn on their own do not disturb mode so that transport teams don’t accidentally contact them whilst they are on holiday or in another time zone.
Meeting Safety Requirements
If you are transporting children and vulnerable adults, then it’s important that all your drivers have been checked with the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). The Disclosure and Barring Service helps employers and organisations make safer recruitment decisions each year by processing and issuing DBS checks.
It is also important that your drivers have a valid driving licence, MOT and more. Road XS is integrated with the DVLA so you can even perform a quick MOT lookup on the vehicle too.
This is all performed as part of the driver lookup process in Road XS to ensure you exceed the minimum safety and standards requirements for your services. Reminders and prompts are also sent for when records are coming up to expiry, and your transport team (and assigned admins) have control of maintaining these records so that you can process records professionally.
All of this happens in a matter of seconds on your behalf.
The Nearest Available Driver Feature Saves Time and Money for Everyone
In using the nearest available driver feature in Road XS, not only are you saving yourself hours each week (and weeks each year) on what would have been making pointless calls to unavailable or inappropriate drivers, but you are also saving your passengers’ money. For every mile Road XS saves a passenger, that’s money your passengers can be put aside for future journeys or activities they wish to get involved in. Whilst some passengers will have their favourite drivers, the nearest available driver feature ensures that all your drivers are included. This keeps everyone in your driver pool happy and more actively engaged in your community. A win-win for community transport providers.
At a time when every mile counts, any reduction in fares and fees provides a greater level of service to your passengers.
Imagine not needing to estimate how things would cost, and just being able to provide accurate and clear communication with your passengers. Reducing manual workload also frees up your transport team to work on other projects at the organisation relating to transport and if you use the driver portal, you can even have your drivers perform some of the work for you. This means you can do more journeys with less effort and provide a better, personalised service in the process.
Summary
The nearest available driver feature is one of the cornerstone features of Road XS. The smooth lookup process and easy on eye design are what sets the software apart from others in the sector. Not only is it a time saving and safety-conscious feature, but it also aligns with our purpose of providing your passengers with the most personalised and friendly service possible.
Our technology enables transport and community transport providers to operate with confidence, increase and maintain safety standards, as well as reduce transport costs to their passengers and reduce wear and tear on driver vehicles.
If you would like to learn more about how this feature can benefit your services, then please don’t hesitate to book a demo or get in touch with us.
