A new service has now been launched in Kent to allow consumers to hail a cab with their smartphones.
The oldest and largest taxi company in Kent, England, Streamline LTD, has just launched a new service called Scan, Click & Go, which allows consumers to use QR codes and their smartphones to be able to call a cab when they need one.
This service using mobile barcodes is the first of its kind in the United Kingdom.
It is designed to allow an easy scan of QR codes to book a car from any number of downtown venues. Nearly instantly, a text message is sent back to the smartphone user, confirming that they have called the taxi and providing them with the vehicle details. This is meant to make it faster and easier for taxi service to be arranged.
The company is calling it the first time that this technology using QR codes has been used in this way.
A press release from Streamline stated that “It is the first time any such technology has been used in the region to book taxis and is a much needed advance in technology.” That said, there are similar forms of technology being used in the United States and that are popping up through the use of QR codes, even though it’s not entirely the same application.
This particular use of QR codes is entirely unique within the industry so far.
Aside from QR codes, though, mobile technology has been making its way into the taxi service industry. For example, it was announced last month that PayAnywhere was making an effort to make partnerships with cab companies so that people would be able to use their smartphones to be able to pay for their rides, instead of having to come up with the cash, which is being used less and less nowadays.
In fact, while it doesn’t use QR codes, new Washington D.C. legislation has changed the way that debit and credit payments are used by taxi companies and that same company, PayAnywhere, has stepped in to assist those companies to keep up with the latest.
