Customer Service – 12 September 2025
Just a reminder of the Customer Service advice issue be the NTA (see poster below)
Our main complaints would be:
Fare Issues – as stated below explain the fare if need be, provide the customer with a receipt, explain the meter rate if need be and inform the customer that the NTA set the taxi meter rate and you as a driver along with us as a dispatch operator don’t have control over the rate as its set by the NTA
Cleanliness and Hygiene – please ensure that you and your car are clean at all time
Customer respect – you should not be on your phone taking long calls when you have a customer in the car, we’ve had a few complaints in the past whereby a driver was a personal call for most of the duration of the journey
Avoid Personal Questions and avoid conversational topics, converse with the passengers appropriately
Issue with IVR/Voicebot – the IVR is not liked by all but used by many many many customers, if someone doesn’t like using it explain to them they can ask to speak to an operator, alternatively they can press 0 to be put through to an operator. They can also email us and we can take their number off the IVR so it will bypass it.
Waterford Harvest Festival ROAD CLOSURES – 5 September 25
The following are the road closures for this weekend 5th September to 7th September for the Harvest Festival:
Roads to be closed
From 6am Friday 5th until 10pm Sunday 7th September 2025
L5532 Arundel Square
L5531 Peter Street
L15237 Michael Street North (from its junction with Patricks St. to Lady Lane)
L91092 Broad Street
L91091 Barronstrand Street
L90352 Georges Street
L90353 Blackfriars Lane
L90354 Arundel Lane
L90355 Little Patrick Street
L55301 Bakehouse Lane
L1525 Patrick Street
L15023 Sargents Lane (from its Junction with Jenkins Lane Car Park)
L1502 O’Connell Street (from its Junction with Thomas Street)
L5501 Gladstone Street
From 6am Saturday 6th September until 10pm Sunday 7th September 2025
L1528 Johns Street (Applemarket)
Diversion Routes
Access to the Cork Road from Ballybricken Green shall be via Mayors Walk and Barrack Street.
Access to The Quays from Ballybricken shall be via James Street & Vulcan Street.
There will be no access to The Quays from O’Connell Street after Vulcan Street.
Access and egress to Jenkins Lane Car Park shall be via Meeting House Lane only.
Entry to Patrick Street will controlled by security and barriers at its junction with Stephens Street and Carrigeen Park and all non-permitted traffic shall be directed to Stephens Street and onto Lady Lane. Traffic Permitted to the closed section of Patrick Street is limited to Taxis, Festival Production and Emergency Vehicles.
Access to Alexander Street shall be via Stephen Street, with egress via Lady Lane.
The traffic direction on the section of Lady Lane from Michael Street to Bakehouse Lane shall be reversed for the duration of the Road Closures
Emergency Access
Taxis
Arising from the closure of Peter Street and Arundel Square the Peter Street Taxi Rank shall be closed for the duration of the Road Closures. With the closure of the Peter Street rank the nearest main rank shall be 50m away at the appointed stand on Patrick Street.
Signage within City Square Shopping Centre and at Peter Street will direct users to the Patrick Street rank.
June and July 25th Anniversary Promotions – 20 June 25
We have some exciting promotions for the month of June and July to celebrate over 25 years in business. This kicked off with a radio interview last week and press coverage this week in all newspapers. The following are the promotions for the next 2 months:
FREE TAXI – Monday 23rd June to Sunday 6th July
For two weeks from Monday 23rd June to Sunday 6th July, we will have one taxi each day going around which will be a FREE TAXI, if a customer gets picked up by this taxi they will get it for free. This will create additional work for everyone and some excitement as customers won’t know which taxi is the FREE Taxi until they get into this taxi. This will be heavily promoted on radio and all social media channels to create more work for everyone.
WLRfm Competition – Monday 23rd June to Friday 27th June
For the week commencing 23rd June we will be running a competition on the breakfast show on WLR, each day listeners will get a chance to win 1 of 5 €15 taxi vouchers with an overall prize at the end of the week for a €500 Harvey Travel Voucher. The competition will be promoting Rapid Cabs, the Rapid Cabs Free Taxi and our prize draw helping create more work for all.
Prize Draw – 7th July to 31st July
Anyone who books a taxi with Rapid Cabs throughout the month of July will be entered into a draw for a fantastic prize of a €1,000 Holiday Voucher from Strand Travel. Each time a person books a taxi with us they get 1 entry so the more taxis they book the more entries they get.
25% Off for New App User
Any new app users can get 25% off by using the promo code 25YEARS this will give them 25% off their first journey (this must be a app credit card journey so we can give the discount) Drivers receive the full fare and the customer gets the 25% off which is paid by Rapid Cabs.
Driver Announcements – 03 April 25
New AI Call Software
This system was introduced to assist people is booking a taxi faster as there is no call wait time for your call to be answered and the process of booking a taxi starts straight away, increasing the number of bookings for you the taxi driver.
It is done through our intuitive AI-based voicebot, this is the most advanced taxi AI call software available, the voicebot will lead the customer through the call and take all the relevant information and can book a taxi, give a fare quotes, cancel or amend an existing booking and is extremely intuitive and will look at past bookings.
If the customer is looking for a specific type of vehicle or looking to book a taxi on account it will pass you through to one of our operators.
Everything in life not for everyone, such as pineapple on a pizza or a luncheon blaa, so our Rapid Response voicebot might not be for all customers, don’t worry our agents are still on hand to answer their calls.
Simply when our voicebot answers the customers call they can just ask to speak to an operator and it will put them through to one of our operators. Alternatively they email us at heretohelp@rapidcabs.com with their name and telephone number and we will take it off of our Rapid Response system.
New Driver Companion Video Demonstrations
We have have now started to produce easy to follow videos for all drivers, this will help drivers with certain features and any new features that we add in the future. To do this we’ve created a YouTube channel whereby drivers can check out the videos in their own time. The channel can be found by clicking on the following link: https://www.youtube.com/@Rapidcabs858585
At the moment we have six videos but will be adding more on a weekly basis, the most popular and useful of these videos are as follows:
Customer Loyalty Rewards https://youtu.be/z19bXSWrkrA?si=4K5haHqlCxqlfxRt
Driver Challenges and Rewards https://youtu.be/CAg9_yMzUGc?si=_RTHDmVKMHyR_rix
How to update your Driver Companion App https://youtu.be/CEeylOhRVYQ?si=B5hburaeJiw4sFwg
Subscribe to the YouTube Channel to get updates of any news videos
Driver Rewards – 12 Dec 24
From today we will commence Driver Incentives, we’re going to start with two scenarios and if these prove successful we can create more in 2025.
If you goes to the main menu on the left hand side of the driver app you will see a “Rewards” icon, click on that and it will show you “Challenges”, we currently have two Challenges set up called “Rejected Job” and “Saturday nights”.
Rejected Job Challenge
A “Rejected Job” is a job that has been rejected a number of times (3+ times), once you complete this Challenge you will earn a Reward, the Reward will be a “Thank you job” for helping us out. A Thank you job is any job with the value of €18-€50, you can activate this whenever you choose and it will offer you a job in either the zone that they are in or the back-up zone. This “Thank you job” will follow you as you move from one zone to another. Once you receive and complete a “Thank you job”, you can then gather another by completing another “Rejected Job Challenge”.
Saturday Night/Sunday Morning Challenge
If a driver completes 7 jobs on Saturday night/Sunday morning between the hours of 1am and 5am they will as a thank you receive a Skip the Queue reward, this will allow a driver go to the top of the queue when they use this reward.
Christmas Competition – 12 Dec 24
This year we are have a competition for the driver with the most 5 star ratings between 13th December and 5th January.
How does a driver get ratings?
When a driver does an app job it will give the customer the option to rate their driver like it always has so this will be the first way that we will look at it. The second way will be if a customer leaves a 5 star google review for Rapid Cabs and mentions the name of the driver.
The prizes:
1st €125 One for All Voucher
2nd €75 One for All Voucher
3rd €50 One for All Voucher
We will announce winners on Monday 6th January
Vehicle Branding – 23rd November 2024
Car Branding
AdSign in Kilcohan will be doing a few more days of branding of cars which will be paid by us, the next day is this Monday please contact the office to get your name down for this, spaces filling up fast. Any car that has Old Branding (Stickers) on it can they please update it to the new branding.
Please remember as per notice earlier in the year the maximum rent cap will increase for those with no car branding, this will commence from start of December.
We will be paying for the branding until the end of November.
Roof Sign Sticker
It would be expected of all cars to have the Rapid Cabs roof sign stickers on the taxi roof sign, this is to help you get less No Pick Ups and helps customers identify their car when getting picked up.
Parking and Plying for Hire – 22nd November 2024
Parking
We have been contacted by the owners of the derelict site beside Sheridan’s on the Cork Road asking if we can pass a message on to taxi owners not to park their taxis or cars there please. This is private land and people are not allowed to park their without prior agreement from the land owner.
Plying For Hire
Just a heads up from our recent yearly NTA audit, they informed us that they were monitoring taxis going in and out of Templars Hall as the NTA have had complaints of taxis driving it to the estate plying for hire. The inspectors informed us that they were monitoring this and that the fine if caught is €100 so for your own benefit make sure you have a job on your screen for Templars Hall if going in there.
New Vehicle Branding – 23rd September 2024
Rapid Cabs Car Stickers
We have created new car branding with AdSign in Kilcohan, this new branding will help taxis affiliated to Rapid Cabs stand out which will in turn should mean more work for you. For a limited period of time we will be paying for all branding done with AdSign but this will be only for a limited amount of time. All cars are expected to have the branding on the roof sign so customers can identify the taxi when it is collecting them. In relation to the branding on the side or back of the car, there are a few options available side door, back window, bonnet or a mix of any of these or all of them as we have on some cars already.
AdSign have a limited number of spaces each day to do the signage please check in with the office for slots available.
New Driver Features – May 2024 – 22nd May 2024
Driver Documents
The purpose of this feature is to send documents to drivers that they might require, it can be an informational document like this one or a document whereby a drivers agreement to the contents might be needed. This can be found in driver companion in the left hand menu and called Driver Documents
Destination Mode
The idea of this is that during busy periods a driver will have the ability to select Destination Mode which will give a job to a driver that is closest to the destination that they set. For the initial set up of this to see how it goes, we have left it so that drivers can select their destination, some taxi companies have this fixed to the drivers home address but we’re providing more flexibility for drivers. Once selected the system will look for jobs for 30 minutes. The system is set up at present so that a driver can have TWO Destinations per 24 hour period, which we will review.
Destination mode can be selected by hitting the online/offline toggle button (the one you select if going on a break). Then click destination mode, this will show you how many uses you have, next select Set Destination, pick the destination and then confirm. You will then see Destination Mode is running and the 30 minute timer.
Autobid
Drivers can now automatically bid on active jobs based on criteria they set for Zones or Capabilities. This allows more flexibility for drivers’ preferences while reducing the amount of active work. With Autobid, you no longer have to scroll through zones and physically interact with your device to initiate a bid request.
A job with multiple Autobid’s from various drivers will be sent as a job offer to one driver only. The system uses the normal bidding rules to determine which driver receives the job. Upon receiving an Autobid Job Offer, you will experience the normal Job Offer screen with the options to accept or reject.
To access this screen:
- Open the right-hand menu and tap the option Autobid
- Enable Autobid by tapping the Enabled toggle to On.
In this menu, you can edit the options that control how Autobid functions on your device.
Radius
Selecting Radius in the menu opens a new screen, with the capabilities available for configuration. Each capability is togglable, enabling or disabling that particular criterion. Under each option is a setting for “Accept Jobs Within __ Kilometers”, this controls the size of the area where Driver Companion will automatically bid on a job.
The value must be greater than 0 with a maximum of 4km, this is now by the road and not as the crow flies, as our system now uses this method when calculating distances.
Preferred Zones
The other configurable setting involves setting zones you want to receive Autobid job offers from, regardless of your radius settings. Now, drivers can automatically bid on jobs in areas they are interested in, for example, Dunmore Road, without impacting their current position or any ongoing jobs.
Bid For Pre-Bookings
We are starting this on a trial basis to see if we encounter any issues and for driver feedback. It currently can only be used for Wheelchair Accessible Jobs and Bus Jobs.
The prebookings section allows you to bid for pre-bookings (pre-selected future work).
To bid for pre-bookings:
- Press on the Prebookingsbutton within the right-hand menu.
- This will then display the Assigned to me and To bidAssigned To Me: This tab will show pre-bookings that you have successfully bid on, as well as, any pre-assigned bookings.
To Bid: This tab will show pre-bookings that you are able to bid on. - Press and hold to open a bookingyou want to bid on, then press Bid.Bid: To bid for the booking.
Remove: To remove the booking from the pre-booking list.
Back Arrow: To go back to the prebooking list.
Note: If you remove a booking from the “To Bid” list, you will not occur a penalty as you have not yet accepted the booking.
- The booking will then be moved to the Assigned to metab, where you can press:Release me: To release the booking as a job.
I cannot do this booking: To return the booking to the To Bid tab.
To filter prebookings:
- Press on the filterbutton at the bottom of the To Bid
- Then press on any of the following filteringoptions:
To quickly bid on or remove a pre-booking:
- Simply swipe right to bidor left to remove a booking.
Note: If you are on the main screen of Driver Companion when a pre-booking is made available to be bid on, you will be presented with the following “Pre-Booking Available” notification at the bottom of your screen, as well as, a “New Job to Bid on” notification at the top.
Passenger Reliability
You will now see if your passenger when accepting a job has a regular or good reliability rating which is a good sign to say that they’ll be there waiting for you.
Updated Zones – 20th March 2024
From today 20th March, we have increased the number of zones mostly in areas outside of Waterford, you will notice these new zones on your driver companion.
The main reason for this is to assist in assuring that bookings in out of Waterford city areas are picked up on time and are dispatched with enough time for a driver to ensure that he gets to his pick up point on time.
If you have any suggestions or changes to zones please email onboarding@rapidcabs.com and we will have a look at these suggestions, lines in zones can be easily amended in real time since our last system update.
We have also updated our Rapid Cabs passenger app today with a new payment provider which will give customers the option to pay using Google Pay and Apple Pay which we are hoping will increase the amount of work available to drivers.
€2 Booking Fee – 23rd November 23
From next Monday 27th November we will no longer be advertising that we don’t charge the €2 call out fee (booking fee) giving you the ability to charge this to customers, we will also be increasing fares on all account jobs with the exception of dialysis jobs as these fares are still under contract.
Please note that for office jobs you can charge the €2 booking fee BUT you MUST have the JOB on YOUR SCREEN and it can’t be an older job, if you take a flag down at the office you are not legally entitled to charge the €2 booking fee unless you have been dispatched the job from the office.
The €2 booking fee was introduced by the government in September 2006, over 17 years ago, there are only a handful of companies left in Ireland no longer charging the €2 booking fee.
As you can imagine your costs at home have increased a lot over the past 17 years so this €2 booking fee will help you with the ever increasing cost of inflation.
FreeNow and Uber charge this and in fact FreeNow charge customers a €1 technology fee, €3 for an advanced booking and €5 fee for larger taxis.
Our taxi app fare estimation will show the increase so customers know before they book, for those not booking by app, we will be paying to send them a text message for the next month sending customers to the government NTA link regarding the fare and extras such as the €2 booking fee. We have the information on our website already and will be adding this to the main area of our homepage on our website today.
Driver App Update – November 2023 – 1st November 23
The latest version of the driver app will take place in November 2023 along with the latest version of the Passenger App, the new features are as follows:
Android Minimum Version From 1st of February 2024:
Driver App
The driver app will update for all drivers this month.
1. New Job Offer Screen (from 12noon 2nd November), there is a new job offer screen for the drivers, this can be in Map view or List View. To switch between views, the drivers needs to go to the right hand menu and to settings, here they will see Job Offer View and they need to click Map or List View
2. Biometric Log in, the driver will be able to log in using their fingerprint making it easier to start their shift
3. Voice command on the job offer screen, the driver can accept a job by saying Yes or No and don’t need to swipe or touch their phone to accept or reject a job
Passenger App
Update on Apple and Android this week with the following new features
1. Capability for new user to sign up using Facebook or their social media account
2. Major update (over a year in the making) when a driver accepts a follow on booking (i.e. another booking while on a job currently), it will then notify the customer that a taxi has been allocated to them and that they are just dropping off another passenger nearby, letting the customer track the taxi from then along with giving them an ETA, this number will decrease dramatically the number of app cancellations as the customer will know there is a taxi allocated to them and just finishing another job nearby.
3. Rate the app after your journey
Android Minimum Version – 28th September 2023
Autocab will have the following Minimum Version requirements from 1st February 2024, so please keep this in mind if updating your phone over the next few months please.
Android Minimum Version From 1st of February 2024:
- Operating System: Android 7.0 or above
- Processor: Quad-Core or above
- RAM: 4GB
- Storage: 32GB
- GPS and Data Capability
- Screen Resolution: 1080P
Recommended: Devices running Android 10 or above, 64GB storage with 1080p Resolution, for best performance.
Collective Benefits changing to Onsi – Wednesday 27th September
From Wednesday 27th September, our benefits provider has changed their name to Onsi (formerly Collective Benefits). The name has changed but this doesn’t impact your current benefits at all – nothing in terms of your cover and your benefits will change. If you haven’t already, download the Onsi app so you can easily use your benefits! Anyone that downloads the app will be entered into a draw to win one of two £250 vouchers (and there are more prize draws coming up for app users) so make sure you don’t miss out. T&Cs apply. If you need any help from the provider, you can get in touch by messaging support@onsi.com.
Rapid Cabs Driver Companion BETA Testing Team – 8th August 2023
We are looking for drivers that would like to join our Driver Companion Beta Testing Team. So what is it? It will mean that you will get the latest version of the Autocab Driver Companion App before other drivers. These versions will have the latest newest features and you will get the chance to have your input in to any suggestions of changes that you think would be beneficial or any aspects of the driver app that you think should be changed.
There will be only 10 spaces available for the Driver Companion Beta team, in order to be part of this group please email your interest to onboarding@rapidcabs.com
After we have the 10 drivers they will receive a link to download the latest beta version of the driver companion app and Autocab will set up a whatsapp group to allow drivers put any suggestions or comments on how the app could be improved or if there is any issues with the app.
This will give you the driver an opportunity to engage with Autocab on the Driver Companion going forward and be the first to get all new features.
Rapid Rewards for Drivers – July 2023
Supporting and encouraging taxi drivers affiliated to Rapid Cabs we have joined up with Collective Benefits. Each driver has have access to their own personal online portal which will show them which tier they are on, their current benefits, their insurance coverage and any claims that they have ongoing.
There are 3 different tiers depending on how many jobs a driver does on average in a week with Rapid Cabs.
Average jobs are calculated on the last Monday of each month based on the previous 4 weeks, Tier’s updated on the 1st of every month for one month
Email required in order to access Collective Benefits Portal and to receive benefits (email onboarding@rapidcabs.com with your email address if we don’t have it already)
The following are the Three tier rewards programme for drivers.
Tier 1
35+ Jobs Per Week
€0
- Discount Scheme with Over 25 Companies. incl. 4c litre Discount Circle K – 10% off at Apple – 8% off Currys PC Word – 7% off Pennys – 10% off Nike – 6% off Ticketmaster – Samsung up to 25% off
- Family Support Services – Helping you take care of the people who matter most
- Financial Support Services – Money and sort legal matters with expert advice
- Mental Health Support – Expert support and counselling for you and your dependents
- Digital Physio – Get help with back and muscle pain
- Digital GP – Connect with a GP via phone, instant chat or video
Tier 2
70+ Jobs Per Week
€0
- Same Benefits as Tier 1
- Time off work insurance benefits
- Accident & Injury – Keep getting paid when you’re injured
- Compassionate Leave – Compassionate benefit upon the loss of an immediate family member
- Accidental Death – Compensation in the case of accidental death
- Family Leave – Maternity and paternity benefit for the self-employed
- Disability – Compensation in the case of permanent injury
- Levels of benefit and claim details available in drivers collective benefits portal
Tier 3
70+ Jobs Per Week
€5/Weekly
- Same Benefits as Tier 1
- Same Benefits as Tier 2
- Increase in insurance sum amounts for Accident & Injury, Accidental Death and Disability
- Accidental Death – €20,000 increased to €60,000
- Permanent Total Disablement – €20,000 increased to €60,000
- Permanent Partial Disablement – €20,000 increased to €60,000
- Accident or illness – €20 per day increased to €60 per day
- Compassionate Leave Benefit – €500
- Family Leave Benefits – €500
3rd July 2023
Rapid APPreciation Loyalty Reward Programme – REMINDER
Every time a customer books a taxi on our app they will get rewards points for every euro spent, then when they have enough points built up to the value of the estimated fare they can use these against the cost of the taxi.
We at Rapid Cabs will be paying for these journeys that use rewards points. It is very important that you put in the correct fare when completing all app jobs cash or card to ensure that customers get the correct amount of rewards points.
When a customer is paying by app rewards, you will receive the booking and on the right hand side by the time of the booking you will see a gift symbol, this is how you will know that is it a rewards payment.
When you get to the fare screen to put in the amount it will show Reward in gold on the screen so you again know it’s a reward payment. You then put in the amount of the fare and click authorise. You will then receive a message saying FARE PAID or PARTIAL PAYMENT ACCEPTED
If you get a message saying PARTIAL PAYMENT ACCEPTED it will let you know the payment outstanding. This will then bring you to a new screen with the amount payable so you can complete the job.
You will receive payment for the rewards job in your credits.
The points are 1 point for every €1 spent, but we will be having promotions at various times offering double and triple points along with bonus points days.
Driver Companion Update – Driver Companion 2.22
27th June 2023
The latest version of Driver Companion is now available. To update go to Google Play and update your app, this can be done by clicking on your profile in the top right and then clicking Manage Apps and Devices and under updates available click on Autocab Driver Companion, alternatively go to Google Play and search Autocab Driver Companion and click update.
Some of the updated features includes an new improved job offer screen showing you more details of the job that you are being offered. IF we see this resulting in more jobs being rejected and customers having longer wait times we will remove the destination or increase the rejected job penalty as its not fair on customers having to waiting longer than expected for a taxi that is close by. Another feature is improvements in Bidding including Bid while busy. Full features can be found here:
European Masters Weightlifting Competition
11th May 2023
The European Masters Weightlifting Competition will take place in Waterford from Friday 12th May to Saturday 20th May. There will be 650 athletes and coaches attending all staying in various hotels in Waterford. Rapid Cabs are the official taxi partner of the event so we expect it to be busy from the 12th May to 20th May with many people travelling to and from the SETU arena where it will be taking place. The events will run from 7am to 7pm daily.
In addition to this on the 13th May (Saturday) and 20th May (Saturday) there is a large cruise liner coming into Dunmore East and we have many bookings in for this already.
We would appreciate as many cars working as possible with the office to ensure a good experience for those coming in on the cruise ships and those attending the European Masters Weightlifting Competition. Thank you.
UPMC Deliveries
13th March 2023
UPMC have updated the form that drivers need to complete in order to be allowed do the bloods transport to and from UPMC. These forms are now available in the taxi office if you can call in and read the form then sign it and leave it in the taxi office. We have been instructed by UPMC that only those that have completed these forms will be allowed transport blood from the 27th March.
Driver Announcements
24th February 2023 (updated 28-02-23)
Call Customer / Call Driver Feature
After feedback from drivers and with the assistance of our developers from Monday next 27th February the Call Customer feature on your driver app will become live. When you receive a job there will be a call customer button on the job (it is the telephone symbol on the top of your driver companion – it appears after you have accepted the job) when you click this it will call the customer from the device that your Driver Companion App is on. In addition to this when a customer makes a booking on the app they will be able to call their allocated drivers device that has the Autocab Driver Companion on. The Call Driver / Call Customer feature will mean less No Shows meaning more pick ups and more money for drivers.
15th February 2023
Rapid APPreciation Loyalty Reward Programme
We are delighted to announce the first ever taxi app loyalty reward programme in the South East of Ireland.
Every time a customer books a taxi on our app they will get rewards points for every euro spent, then when they have enough points built up to the value of the estimated fare they can use these against the cost of the taxi.
We at Rapid Cabs will be paying for these journeys that use rewards points. It is very important that you put in the correct fare when completing all app jobs cash or card to ensure that customers get the correct amount of rewards points.
When a customer is paying by app rewards, you will receive the booking and on the right hand side by the time of the booking you will see a gift symbol, this is how you will know that is it a rewards payment.
When you get to the fare screen to put in the amount it will show Reward in gold on the screen so you again know its a reward payment. You then put in the amount of the fare and click authorise. An urgent message box will appear letting you know if the customer owes any balance to you.
You will receive payment for the rewards job in your credits.
If you would like a demonstration of what a job would look like please let us know, we will have a video demonstration up here soon too.
The points are 1 point for every €1 spent, but we will be having promotions at various times offering double and triple points along with bonus points days.
9th January 2023
Dialysis Patient Transport
We have been asked to relay the following message by the dialysis unit to all drivers.
There is a big outbreak of Covid-19 and another number of viruses in UHW. We must not allow the patients to be dropped off at the reception area before their due time.
It is unsafe for them to be sitting together before their treatment.
Some patients are being dropped off half an hour before their prearranged time.
The patients may call the office from the taxi to find out if their bed is ready for them.
Chronic Dialysis Unit: 051 842753 / 051 842367
Acute Dialysis Unit: 051 848 959
24th October 2022
Dialysis Patient Transport
We have been asked to relay the following message by the dialysis unit to all drivers.
They wanted to remind all drivers to UHW that all Covid-19 Guidelines are still firmly in place (until we are informed otherwise by the HSE).
With Covid-19 increasing and coming into the winter flu season we want to keep everyone as safe as possible
- Please wear a mask in the presence of patients and staff
- Patients must travel alone
- Patients should sit in the back
- Observe social distancing where possible
- Drivers are not to come into the clinical areas
1st September 2022
Driver Loyalty Scheme
We are delighted to announce that we will be launching a drivers loyalty rewards scheme on the 20th of September, this will give drivers excusive discounts, wellbeing supports (mental wellbeing support, digital GP, digital physio and financial wellbeing supports) and subject to age accidental death, critical injury, accident cover, family leave and compassionate leave cover.
In order for drivers to access the portal for this an email address will be required, if you can let the back office know your email address please to help facilitate the setting up of your portal. If you do not have an email address we will have Aoibhe available in the back office from next Wednesday from 10am until 3pm to help those without an email address set up a Gmail email address.
Further details on the scheme will be announced very soon along with qualifying conditions for the scheme.
9th February 2022
Broadcast Page
On the driver companion app the Broadcast Page has now changed giving you the ability to show certain type of jobs/cars available to bid on with certain colours, but also updates broadcast pages more regularly and for all capabilities.
Full instructions and details can be found by clicking on the following link
https://products.autocab.net/notes/work-filters/
25th January 2022
Drivers App Update
In order to have the latest updates, please keep your drivers app up to date, this is how you keep it up to date:
1. Go in to the Google Play Store on the phone that your driver app is on
2. Now sign in with your google ID if your not already signed in
3. Click on your profile picture on the top right hand side
4. Click on Manage apps and device
5. Now you will see a line saying Updates Available, click on Update all here
6. Any Apps that need to be updated on your device will now be updated and you will now be using the latest version of the app
** It is recommended that you update apps over a Wi-Fi connection or when not working as it can slow down your driver app
16th December 2021
Passenger APP Card Payments
As I’m sure you’re away that there is issues at times when putting through Credit Card App Customer payments at present about 10% of card payments are failing even though the customer has funds on their cards. This issue is affecting more than 500 taxis companies throughout Ireland and the UK and I’m sure many more that we don’t know about. The reason this is happening (since the end of October) is a thing called PSD2 which is an additional security measure for epayments/online card payments which the app falls under. This is mandatory from March next year but some banks decided to implement this early to the surprise of many.
We have been working with Autocab every week since October on this and are confident that a solution will be found shortly, in the meantime we recommend the following for customers paying by card through the App.
1. At the destination try and put through the payment as you would normally, like all card payments please make sure the customer is in the car when doing this in the event that the card declines
2. If the card declines (about 10% are at present), then if you explain to the customer that is a epayments security issue with the banks and that they can put the payment through on your own card machine that you have for your taxi
*if you don’t have a card machine for your taxi we would recommend getting one, besides generating extra revenue and business for your taxi it is also scheduled to become a requirement for all taxis in 2022. At present we recommend the Sum Up 3G Card Reader, but there are many suppliers and options out there
3rd December 2021
Christmas Competition
We are happy to announce that we have a competition for Rapid Cabs taxis this year which should help get everyone into the festive spirit, we are looking for the most Festive Rapid Cabs Taxi and the winner of the most festive taxi as voted by our customers on social media will win a €150 Waterford Gift Voucher
What you need to do is, start decorating your taxi once decorated take a picture and email it to us at info@rapidcabs.com or let us know and we’ll take a pic. We will be putting up the pictures on our social media and we will let the customers decide on who will be crowned Rapid Cabs Most Festive Taxi 2021
Last day for entries Wednesday 15th December. Winner announced 22nd December. Best of luck to everyone and we can’t wait to see the photos.
18th October 2021
Dialysis Patients
The dialysis unit have observed that some drivers have not wearing masks properly and using hand sanitizer, as we are all aware Covid is very much present in all areas and it is important as ever to comply with Public Health guideline that remain in place re hand sanitation and the wearing of masks etc.
If drivers present with symptoms of Covid 19, get called re close contact etc, they should adhere to the Public Health guidelines, get tested and should not present for work until they receive a negative test result. If positive they should follow advice given by the HSE.
The unit have said that they will be monitoring this closely over the next few weeks and any person not compliant will be not long allowed carry out any patient transport.
It has been noted that the majority of drivers are fully compliant and should keep up the good work.
More information on the notice board in waiting area of taxi office.
21st September 2021
WIT SAFE HOME SCHEME
We are delighted once again to be partnering with the WIT Students Union and Purple Flag Waterford to bring the WIT Safe Home Scheme to Waterford.
What is it?
If a student has no money and they need a taxi to a Waterford city location, they simply give their WIT Students Union Card to the driver, the driver then drops the card into the Rapid Express office and receive payment straight away for the fare, then the student calls in to collect their card and pay the fare.
What you as a driver needs to do?
If a student asks for a taxi home on the safe home scheme, drop them home and take their WIT student card from them, drop the student card along with the taxi receipt into the Rapid Express office, you will then get paid in cash for the fare. Please ensure that you drop the card into the office the next day as the student will require their student card to access certain services on campus
16th July 2021
Update on Minimum Requirements for Driver Companion
Autocab our software company recommend the following for the device that your driver companion will be on:
Andriod 5.0 or above
Quad-Core Processor of above
Minimum of 2GB RAM free on the Device
Minimum of 8GB storage on the Device
Requires GPS
Screen Size 1280 by 720
Typical Android devices would be Samsung S10, Samsung A10, Samsung J8, Samsung J6, Samsung J5 and Samsung J3
In relation to data sim, 1GB of data per month but 2GB for using mapping/directions
22nd April 2021
Message for Local Link re: Dialysis Drivers Vaccinations
Please note all driver details who were originally submitted for the vaccination in January are still with UHW awaiting call up for vaccinations however we have been advised from UHW that following the HSE AstraZeneca issues and revised arrangements e.g. Mass Vaccination Centres, it is advisable for drivers to self-register on the following site https://vaccine.hse.ie/ when the appropriate age bracket becomes available.
Unfortunately this is completely out of our hands & we have no control or influence over the vaccination process or call ups
6th April 2021
Please ensure that the correct fare amount charged to the customer is put in when clearing yourself on all cash jobs (not required on flag downs) this is to ensure that we can continue the commission model for rent, if it is not being done we will have unfortunately no alternative but to stop this. If the fare area can’t be changed you can either call the office and they can put in the correct fare for you or alternatively use the message template to send a message to the operator with the correct fare. Thank you.
5th April 2021
Driver Vaccines – In relation to driver vaccines, any drivers that do dialysis patient transport and have said that they would like to receive the vaccine are on a list that has already been submitted to UHW and the HSE, we do not have any control on when people will be called for vaccines. We contact the dialysis and local link every few days for updates and once we get updates we will put them up here. Hoepfully all those that wish to receive a vaccine will do so soon.
4th April 2021
Dialysis has asked us to remind drivers of the following:
“In regards to the area outside dialysis priority must be given to ambulance drivers/vehicles at all times and please make sure access for ambulances drivers/vehicles is not blocked at any time”
23rd March 2021
After various contact with UHW and Local Link we are delighted to say that those dialysis drivers who have opted in to get the covid vaccine will be contacted by text over the next two weeks (24th March to 7th April) with their appointment for their vaccine. We will like we have since January keep contacting UHW to ensure that these vaccination appointments are scheduled.
For those that are currently not on our dialysis transport list you can still get put on our list of dialysis patient transport drivers, relevant forms available in the Rapid Express office from Jackie.