tweetalondoncab – the virtual cab rank

Welcome to @tweetalondoncab (we call it TLC for short).  You should be reading this page if you are a licensed London Taxi Driver, green or yellow badge, we ain’t fussy!  This page will give you a brief overview of what TLC is all about and what you, as a driver, need to do to join us.

General advice on how TLC works;

Tweetalondon was founded by Karl James (@londontaximan) who came up with the TLC concept back in June 2009, and I (@cabbiescapital) have been helping Karl with some of the more technical bits & bobs. We both have the most experience when it comes to Twitter & TLC but do not envisage, or even want to, be the guys that run the whole show. We really want the whole TLC concept to work as a collective, which means that we welcome, and indeed expect, input from all the drivers. We already have a great group of drivers that pitch in to help with the different aspects of running TLC.

There are 2 aspects to TLC, the first is punters booking taxis.  The process we use is explained briefly below, but it’s really best that you come and meet someone (contacts are listed further down the page) who can take you through how the whole thing works.  The second aspect of TLC is the real time, work related information you can get via driver’s Tweets.  With over 50 drivers, you can view the messages that are being sent from them as they are working, and it gives you a great idea of what is going on in town.  Where there is work, where the traffic is bad etc, etc…  I cannot stress enough how useful this information is to a working cabby, I would not be without my TLC twitter feed while working, it has helped me get work from venues on the burst on countless occasions.  It is also helping communication around some of the “reclaim our work” initiatives.

I think it’s really important to point out at this point that TLC is not a company, and TLC is making no money out of this.  Therefore there is an expectation that any new driver takes responsibility for getting themselves up to speed on how the whole TLC concept works. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of drivers within the TLC community that can offer assistance & guidance, far from it in fact, but it does mean that once we have explained what you need to do, we expect drivers to try and be self sufficient! We don’t have the time or resources to hold peoples hands, the work is coming through the TLC account so once you’re fully up to speed, if you see a job you can do – just grab it!

A few basics;

1. @tweetalondoncab is the main account that we use for the service. Potential punters follow this account & we follow them back. This means they can direct message (DM) their trip requests to the TLC account and they stay private. As a new driver you can follow this account, but to view or bid for work you don’t have to.
2. @cabup – this is a protected account that only TLC drivers follow, and it follows them back. The protection means that only TLC drivers see the messages that go through this account. So any msg that you only want TLC drivers to see, use this account.  It sounds a bit complicated, but it works well and means that we can keep all the cabbie related info away from the TLC account and the general public.  You can be granted access to this account by being recommended by an existing TLC driver.
3. To “join” TLC fully, you will need to meet one of the drivers listed below, who will explain fully how jobs get allocated and how everything works.  Until you do this, we are happy for you to have access to the @cabup account (through which you can view all the very useful work related information) but you will not be able to view or bid for work.  It sounds a bit draconian, but our experience so far tells us this is the way to go.

So that’s how we operate at the moment.  One big happy family trying to get cabbies to work in a slightly different way.  We hope you decide to join us and help that community get bigger and stronger.

Contacts, with Twitter name & email.

Karl James – @londontaximan, londontaximan@googlemail.com
Richard Cudlip – @cabbiescapital, richardcudlip@yahoo.co.uk
David Hopkins – @cabbydavid, cabbydavid@gmail.com
Dawn Cooper – @CoopsE1, dawn.cooper@btinternet.com
Lee Cox – @Jackcabnory, leecox32@hotmail.com
Mark Morris – @markthecab, cabbymark@hotmail.com