For this to work we need to set some guidelines, but we want to keep them to a minimum, and hope that the open nature of Twitter will work to everyones benefit.

1. If you want to use the service you’ll need to follow @tweetalondoncab, if you do we will follow you back, assuming you aren’t one of those nasty Britney Spears Video type spambots.
2. When you want to book a journey send a Direct Message (DM) to @tweetalondoncab stating the time, exact location & destination of your desired trip. Please also include a mobile phone no, as you probably know Twitter isn’t always behaving, & this may be the only way we can contact you. Any driver or drivers that can cover the trip will then msg you directly to offer their services. In the unlikely event that more than one driver gets back to you, please respond to the first driver that contacts you & make the final arrangements through a DM with him.
3. Make sure that any personal information you give out is done as a DM, @tweetalondoncab is an open account, therefore any general msg will be out there, and viewable, in the general twitterverse.
4. Please try and give us as much notice as you can when planning your journey. We currently think that 30 minutes before you want to travel would be ideal.
5. This is an experiment of a socio-technological nature that may require your patient and understanding while we listen and learn how to run this the best way.
6. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that your request will be met, another reason to plan ahead, and we won’t be offended if you hail a cab from the street before you make an arrangement with us. We’d just rather you didn’t do that if a driver is already on his way to an agreed pick-up. If you don’t hear back from us, it’s not because we are rude, it’s probably that we are all just a bit busy working and won’t be able to help you on that occasion.
7. Finally, please tell us how the experience went, and more importantly tell the twitterverse too!

So, hopefully, you’ll have made the “deal” with a driver, completed your trip in style, fallen in love with us forever, and most importantly you’ll remember to use us again.

We are not looking to compete with any of the established radio circuits, nor are we a profit making service. With this in mind there will be no surcharges, and meters will not be engaged until you are in the cab. We will clearly be relying on the trust factor that is such an important part of Twitter, and from our side you can be assured that all the drivers are verified Licensed London Taxi Drivers. Some of you may have already had the pleasure of being picked up by @londontaximan or @cabbiescapital, both part of the brains trust behind @tweetalondoncab. So, it’s over to all you lovely people in the Twitterverse; give us a Tweet and meet some of London’s finest cabbies.

If you have any further queries or questions, feel free to contact @cabbiescapital or @londontaximan. And whatever you do, don’t forget to follow us by clicking on this link.

@Nigel42, @CoopsE1 (seated), @cabbydavid (seated), @thegreenbadge, @metropete7 (rear), @jt188chinesecab, (middle), @TitanicCabby (front), @Lee_tax (hiding), @londontaximan (front), @cabbiescapital, @licencetaxihire, @cabgeeza (front), @legalledoff, @JasTHFC (rear), @jackcabnory (middle), @markthecab (protecting his valuables), @MartCAFC

London's finest - I'm just not saying what we're the finest at...

How it works;

1. We’ll take requests via tweets using the #twesticab tag.

2. Or just pass a note to the team there on the night by finding the #Twesticab desk, manned by @cabbiescapital, @londontaximan and @paul_clarke.

3. Requests need to state:

• Twitter name (or names)
• Desired departure time (or range of times)
• Destination (ideally street/road name and first bit of postcode)
• Mobile number (only if there might be problems confirming your cab via Twitter – Numbers will not be displayed publicly)

4. If booking, a voluntary donation of £3 to Childline is suggested – via any of the team. (Bear in mind you may well save more than this if the taxi-sharing goes well)  Drivers will also be making donations, most likely as a % of any fares they take.

5. We’ll put requests up on a chart and plan travel combinations and routes that make sense.

6. Half an hour before your cab goes you’ll get a tweet to confirm (or a text if necessary) and you can pick up a confirmation slip from the team.

7. You’ll be told in the confirmation and on the slip the Twitter names of your fellow travellers and your driver, and the departure time and location of your cab.

8. We’ll help you to get in touch, and to get your cab.

What’s in it for you?  Lots!

• A safe journey home with a licensed black cab driver.
• The chance to travel with new and interesting people.
• Saving money through sharing (hopefully!).
• Friendlier on the environment than everyone taking separate cabs.
• Chance to try out a new way of managing travel, and to support a new twitter venture, @tweetalondoncab
• You get looked after: personal service from booking, to confirmation, to helping you get to your cab.

@Tweetalondoncab is very excited about coming to Twestival and looks forward to making new friends whilst raising a bit of money for Childline along the way.

London Twestival on 10 September, and will be bringing some community

innovation to the evening in the shape of London’s first ever Virtual Cab

Rank.

Formed as a collective of black cab drivers, who all met through Twitter,

TLC is a great example of how Twitter can help a group of sole traders

to provide a service to others with a totally new approach. Twitter has not

only enabled them to provide this service, but also to form a close-knit

group of drivers who use Twitter to exchange all sorts of useful “cabbie

information”, traffic alerts, work hot-spots and where to meet for a cuppa

and a gossip!

TLC will also be operating a “virtual cab rank” at the Twestival, helping to

arrange black cabs on the night. This will take tweeted (or scribbled)

travel plans, and – using a little technology, a lot of Knowledge, the TLC

network and other contacts – arrange for combined taxis where possible,

giving Twestival-goers a cheaper, more social and environmentally friendly

journey. People using the virtual rank can make a small donation to

Childline in return for the service, and the TLC drivers will also donate a

proportion of fares on the night.

Follow @tweetalondoncab! We’re really looking forward to helping Twestival

and meeting as many fellow Tweeters as possible on the night.

But back to the good news.  Thanks to our first customer, @Britt_W, Channel 4 news have picked up on our existence, and after I spoke to them yesterday, still decided that they wanted to interview someone on todays lunchtime news.  So I will be heading for Grays Inn Road and hoping that nerves don’t get the better of me.  I’ll be trying to get across the message that @tweetalondoncab is a true collective operation, that it shows cab drivers are prepared to be innovative and that our service values our customers safety & security above all else.

And then, completely separate from the Channel 4 thing, Sky News started following us and wanted to have a chat.  So another phone call with me trying to explain what we are about, and they then mentioned us on their technology round up at about 7:25pm last night (blink and you’ll miss it), and posted this story about us on their website.  I really don’t know where they got the idea from that I set it all up, as I talked about us as a collective and how the initial idea had come from another driver.  Never mind, all publicity is good publicity, right?

So watch the C4 news this lunchtime, laugh at me if you must, things seem to be getting a bit interesting now.

yay! - it worked!

Following a final meeting in an old petrol station car park in deepest Southwark, Karl (@londontaximan) and myself (@cabbiescapital) made the executive decision to launch @tweetalondoncab on Friday 3rd July – yesterday. After much umming & not a small amount of ahhing over the past weeks, we felt it was better just to go for it, launch the concept and see what happens.

I was at Tuttle, (doing a lot of exaggerated hand movements from the look of this) sitting in St James’s Park trying to find some way of connecting to the interweb (huge thanks to @paul_clarke for the loan of his, er, dongle), while Karl sent out the initial tweets, and within minutes it seemed that we were being re-tweeted everywhere. One person who arrived at Tuttle at around midday had already heard of us via Twitter before getting introduced to me – a nice moment. Once the link to our blog was sent out (Karl, mate, you MUST learn how to add links to your tweets!) that was also getting plenty of views, over 450 in total yesterday. @tweetalondoncab now has over 150 followers, and certainly created a little bit of a buzz in the twitter world. There is also a possibility that those nice people at Time Out will give us a mention in their next edition. All in all an excellent start I think, even if it didn’t create many jobs. We’re out there and people know about us, we just need to keep spreading the word and hopefully the work will start to steadily build. The honour of being our first customer went to @Britt_W, and thanks to @cabbytez for making that happen.

Would love to hear any feedback as to what people think of the concept and how we might take it forward. All suggestion/criticisms welcome, us cabbies are thick skinned!

So a big collective well done to all of us, we’ve already made people view cab drivers in a slightly different light. Now let’s see where this thing takes us!