Mobile Team Steers Belgrade Towards Safer Taxi Travel
Taxi travel in Belgrade should be safer, quicker and more reliable, with the launch of a new mobile phone app that is being hailed as a game-changer for cab businesses in Belgrade.
Safety is a significant benefit of Taksiko, enabling customers to wait inside until the vehicle arrives, rather than stand around on a street or trawl the ranks. The app also provides the registration number and predicted arrival time of the taxi ordered, so rogue cabbies should not be able to come along and take you for a ride. As an additional security feature, every taxi trip is registered by the app, noting the time, route and vehicle number.
“When we sat down to plan this app, safety was a key objective for us,’ said Imperio’s Aleksandar Djuric. “We not only wanted to modernise the process of calling a cab, we wanted to make it much safer too. Taksiko allows people to feel more at ease with travelling by taxi, day or night.”
Taksiko Improves Belgrade Taxi Travel
With Taksiko’s simple design and user profiles, ordering a taxi is a simple one step process. After booking via just a few screen taps, a confirmation will be received, containing details of the taxi allocated to the booking. If there are additional requirements for the journey, an advanced option makes it possible to select a car with air conditioning, to inform the driver of any extra luggage or check that the vehicle will be suitable for a disabled passenger. A location-based system also allows the cab company to pinpoint a specific area at any large venue, making it easier to be found by the driver
The smart phone application (downloadable via iTunes etc) has been developed by a team of five young Serbian entrepreneurs, drawing on similar services that operate across Europe but has not yet arrived in Serbia. Taksiko changes that situation for the better.
The five trend-makers (Mladjan Antic, Milica Djoric, Aleksandar Djuric, Bojan Kopanja and Pedja Rusic) set up Imperio to tap into Serbia’s growing smart phone market with a series of apps specifically targeted to the needs of the region and linking up with businesses there. For this release, Imperio has partnered with the Pink Cab Association, one of the oldest and most respected Belgrade taxi firms. Future upgrades should offer bonus incentives as users clock up points every time they use the service.
The Taksiko service, which is available on iPhone and Android phones, will operate in Belgrade only at launch, but developers Imperio Inc have plans to roll it out across Serbia and the Balkan region.
Marketing initiatives aimed at tourists and business travellers will also encouraged visitors to download the Taksiko app before arriving in Belgrade, so that they can be confident of safe taxi travel during their stay in the city. Improving the reputation of Belgrade and Serbia was another key objective for the development team, said Aleksandar: “This app delivers benefits for those who live in Belgrade and helps to make our city more safe for tourists and businessmen, too. Visitors to our city want to feel comfortable and safe, if they are going to come back. Taksiko goes a long way to making that a reality.”
Download here. For more information, visit http://www.taksiko.com/
7 / 4 / 2012 10:05 pm
I am very glad to hear this as just last weekend I had a friend (foreign citizen) bullied and robbed by a taxi driver from a taxi picked in front of splav in Sava… I will recommend this to everyone and will be using the app myself!!!
7 / 5 / 2012 8:58 am
Thanks for your comment, Marina. I appreciate you sharing the horrid incident with your friend. Hopefully this app will help prevent similar things from happening in the future – that was a main reason for running this report.
7 / 4 / 2012 10:45 pm
Thanks for sharing this kind of problem. Luckly, with Taksiko no one can be bullied or robbed. That’s one of main goals of Taksiko.