As we’ve talked about before, the implementation of groundbreaking technology has revolutionised not just Addison Lee’s working practices but, in many instances, the private hire industry in general. 

In the article below, Addison Lee is featured in a case study by mobile workforce management experts, Cognito.  The piece is a fascinating insight into how technology has helped us to enjoy 30% year-on-year growth and to expand our fleet from 500 cars in 2004 to the 2200 people carriers we have on the road today.

http://www.cognitomobile.com/attachments/2/Addison%20Lee.pdf

There is also an online video featuring interviews with our very own Peter Ingram (IT Director), Piotr Walcyznski (Cab Driver) and Chris Kyprianou (Controller)

http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/05/27/236179/video-mobile-workforce-management-with-addison-lee-and.htm

A thoroughly entertaining article about Addison Lee appeared in yesterday’s Evening Standard.  The piece was an interview with John Griffin (with occasional cameos from Liam!).

The full story can be read by clicking

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard-business/article-23652065-details/Even+a+slump+and+the+bus+lane+ban+can%27t+stop+London%27s++biggest+cabbie/article.do

Addison Lee is pleased to announce that on 18th February 2009 we completed the acquisition of The Premier Transport Group consisting of Premier Despatch Ltd, Premier First Ltd and Purple Courier Ltd.

The acquisition of Premier Transport Group creates a combined operation with an annual turnover in excess of £118 million. Premier’s 400 vehicles will be added to Addison Lee’s 2,200-strong fleet and together the two companies will provide premium minicab, chauffeur and international courier services to more than 12,000 London corporate account customers.  It is Addison Lee’s fourth major company acquisition in as many years.
 
In a time of economic uncertainty, it would be easy for Addison Lee to sit back and simply consolidate our position as clear market leader in the ground transportation market .  However, Addison Lee has revolutionised the private hire industry through acquisition, ground breaking technology and constant reinvestment of profits and it is the absolute belief of the company that this latest acquisition will enable Addison Lee to further strengthen our position as clear market leader and enhance our status as a genuine competitor to the black taxi trade, whilst continuing to improve the image and service offering of the minicab trade in general.

Liam Griffin, managing director of Addison Lee clarified; “This acquisition forms part of our ongoing strategy to consolidate our pole position in the competitive London market. Addison Lee has grown rapidly over the last five years thanks to our professional service and advanced booking technology that offers minicabs within 15 minutes in Central London. We look forward to providing Premier’s customers with the same ‘on demand’ taxi service our existing clients enjoy.”

Everyone at Addison Lee would like to wish all staff and drivers joining our company a long and successful career.

I’ve spent the morning so far poring over some fascinating (that’s just in my rather boring world) statistics from the Department for Transport.  Each year, they publish figures showing all manner of potentially useless information about how we get from one place to another and back again.  Before I go into detail, let me give you a couple of examples.

Did you know that in Wales, 80% of people travel to work by car.  However, in Inner London, that figure is only 20%.

In Scotland, 12% of people travel to work by bus or coach, whereas only 3% do so across the whole of the East of England.

Ok, I presume you get the gist of what I’m talking about and I am a sucker for a statistic or two.

One slightly alarming report relates to breath tests conducted by the police:

In London in 1996, 127,500 breath tests were carried out, returning 16,000 positive or refused results.  However, in 2006, only 66,000 tests were conducted, but these returned 18,700 positive results.

A particular point of note relating to Addison Lee is the method of transport used to get to airports.  Between 2001 and 2007, 27% of people used either a taxi or minicab to get to Heathrow - 17% to Gatwick and 10% to Stansted.  Easy to see why we complete so many airport transfers.

In 2006/2007, 24,593 black taxi licenses were handed out in London, compared to 38,040 minicab licences.  I’m getting into this now!

In 2005/2006, the average Londoner walked 231 miles per year, whereas in Northern Ireland they managed only 138 miles per person on foot.  Only 17% of Londoners manage to get into work in less than 20 minutes, whilst in the North East, over 50% of people manage to do just that.

I’m actually starting to bore myself now.  Perhaps it’s better to quit while I’m ahead.  I may return later…….

Morning,

A slightly easier journey into Addison Lee this morning.  Yesterday’s picture postcard scene has been replaced by the less attractive mix of sludge, black ice and flailing pedestrians.  More by luck than judgement, I managed to keep my footing on the way to the bus stop and, perhaps more importantly, the bus driver managed to keep the wheels pointing in the right direction.

Understandably, yesterday was a busy day at Addison Lee.  As with many companies, the first challenge during adverse weather conditions is to get bums on seats in the office - particularly in our call centre.  Thankfully, Addison Lee already employs 100 homeworker telephonists, which gives us a decent head start.  Allowing for the atrocious conditions and the almost complete shutdown of the public transport network, huge credit goes to our staff and drivers for getting the call centre up to a high level of occupancy.  So just how busy were we yesterday?  In a nutshell, we were as busy as we physically could have been.  Our drivers are no different to any other chaps trying to get into work and not all of them made it.  However, over 750 battled through the white stuff to get out on the roads.   As a company, Addison Lee always prioritises account customers and due to the excessive demand we had to suspend bookings for cash and credit card customers during the day.  Airport transfers were significantly increased, with many passengers arriving to find their planes cancelled and heading back to work or home for a bonus day off.  Many passengers actually booked their airport transfers as a wait and return service, due to the uncertainty of the flight schedules.

In town, as you might expect, many people had stayed at home and the City was strangely quiet.  However, those who did venture in were fairly reliant on Addison Lee and our black taxi friends to get them around as the tubes were creaking and the busses were parked in the garage. 

Leaving work in the evening was a curious affair.  Personally, I decided to put my faith in the Northern Line (a gamble at the best of times!) and I was staggered to find Warren Street station virtually deserted.  I was even more surprised to find myself on a nearly empty High Barnet train.    Presumably, those who had made it into work had bailed out and gone home earlier in the afternoon. 

No one at Addison Lee is claiming that we’re the fourth emergency service!  However, just ask any of the 25,000 passengers we transported yesterday whether we can be relied upon in any weather conditions and I’d predict the answer would be fairly conclusive.

It hopefully hasn’t gone unnoticed that Addison Lee’s efforts to reduce the negative effect of our business on the environment has been fairly relentless.  In addition to the recognition we have received in the shape of prestigious awards from the Energy Savings Trust and the accolades bestowed upon us by the London Green 500, there are constant behind the scenes efforts made by our Corporate Social Responsibility team.  The environmental issue is clearly not going to go away in a hurry.  Companies such as Addison Lee have a definite obligation to source the ‘greenest’ methods of transport and fuel, which leads nicely on to one of the most contentious subjects of all - hybrid vehicles. 

The private hire industry has undoubtedly seen an upsurge of smaller firms adding hybrid vehicles to their fleet, with some companies opting only  to have non-diesel cars.  The concept appears to be very noble, but what it is not often reported is the methodology involved in creating these battery operated ‘runarounds.’

It is a popular misconception that the Toyota Prius is the greenest vehicle on the road.  In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. 

The Prius is powered by not one, but two engines: a standard 76 horsepower, 1.5-litre gas engine found in most cars today and an additional battery powered engine that deals out 67 horsepower and 295ft/lbs of torque below 2000 revolutions per minute. Essentially, the Toyota Synergy Drive System, as it is so called, propels the car from a dead stop to up to 30mph. This is where the largest percent of gas is consumed. The battery is recharged through the braking system and when the gasoline engine takes over anywhere above 30mph.
Building a Toyota Prius causes considerably more environmental damage than a standard diesel car.  As previously mentioned, the Prius is partly driven by a battery, which contains nickel. The nickel is mined and smelted at a plant in Sudbury, Ontario.  The plant produces 1,000 tons of nickel annually and has caused so much environmental damage to the surrounding landscape that NASA has used the ‘dead zone’ around the plant to test moon rovers. The surrounding area is devoid of any life for miles.
It was reported by the Canadian Greenpeace energy coordinator, David Martin, that the acid rain around Sudbury was so severe that all plant life was destroyed and the soil slid off the hillside.
However, the environmental damage does not stop at the plant.  The nickel is subsequently transported via massive container ships to the largest nickel refinery in Europe.  From there, the nickel is flown to China to produce ‘nickel foam.’ From China, it is then sent to Japan and finally, the completed batteries are shipped to the country of sale, completing a multi-continent journey required to produce a single Prius battery.

Addison Lee has given considerable thought to adding hybrid vehicles into our fleet.  As London’s largest minicab company and with a proud history of reinvesting profits into innovation and technological advancements, if we considered it to be both environmentally friendly and better for our clients, we wouldn’t hesitate to do so.  However, it is our absolute belief that this simply isn’t the case.

Your opinions would be very welcome.  Click on the no comments tab, or e-mail me at jeremyb@addisonlee.com

At past midnight on Sunday, Ronnie O’Sullivan clinched his 4th Masters crown with a thrilling 10-8 victory over the defending champion, Mark Selby, at Wembley Arena.  Ronnie, who is sponsored by Addison Lee was understandably thrilled with the title, particularly as he was playing with a brand new cue.  Before the tournament started, Ronnie deliberately smashed his old cue, as he was frustrated with the way he had been playing.  Maybe I should try throwing my keyboard out of the window to become a better writer!

Hearty congratulations to Ronnie from all at Addison Lee.

Much talk in the news these last few weeks about the proposed third runway at Heathrow, culminating in final approval from the transportation secretary, Geoff Hoon, in Parliament on Tuesday. 

Many of the people opposed to the building of the runway are gravely concerned about the damaging environmental impact that the extra traffic will create.  However, the arguments on both sides are compelling.  Some experts have reported that as many as 65,000 jobs could be created - a welcome boost in the current economic difficulties.  The government is also insistent that failing to create more space for arrivals and departures could see the airport losing vital revenue to our European neighbours such as Paris or Berlin.  Protesters counter this statement with the argument that the majority of flights handled by Heathrow are domestic and therefore offer no threat of lost business.

On the flip side, the residents of the village of Sipson are understandably horrified at the prospect of losing their homes to make way for the flight path.  It is a sobering thought that the entire village would have to be knocked down to make way for the planes. 

Heathrow currently operates at 99% capacity and has been plagued by complaints of delays, overcrowding at terminals, lost luggage and poor customer service in recent years.  The launch of Terminal 5 last year was an unmitigated disaster and created more bad press for the already under fire British Aviation Authority - the owners of Heathrow Airport. 

The subject is clearly far from closed.  To begin building the runway, the BAA will first have to obtain planning permission from local Government in Hounslow, where it is believed local officials are vehemently opposed to the project.  When the decision was announced in Parliament, one Labour MP, John McDonald, was so incensed by the decision that he rushed out of his seat, seized the mace - a 17th century ornamental club that represents the authority of the monarch and the speaker of Parliament - and set it down furiously on the Labour benches.  Apparently, this is a bit naughty in Parliamentary circles and he was promptly suspended for 5 days.  Maybe he was after a week off!

In all seriousness, this is a highly emotive issue and the chances of further opposition and demonstration are almost odds-on.  You will probably have noticed this has been a non Addison Lee or minicab blog entry today, but this will, of course, affect us as well.

Addison Lee carries out over 6000 airport transfers to and from Heathrow every week.  Our minicab rank ensures that we meet passengers from their planes on-time despite the occasional chaos of the airport.  A third runway would inevitably create more flights and therefore more work for Addison Lee.  However, it should not go unmentioned that Addison Lee is a company who have focused intently on the environmental effect of transport in the capital - maybe we won’t take sides just yet.

Once again, Addison Lee has been publicly recognised for our environmental initiatives and this time the accolades have come straight from the mouth of The Mayor of London.  Boris Johnson yesterday congratulated several ‘household name’ companies, including Addison Lee, for their work with The London Green500, an organisation commited to helping large businesses reduce their carbon emissions.

In the past 2 years, Addison Lee has reduced the amount of ‘dead’ mileage covered by our minicabs by an astonishing 18,000 miles each day.  As a company, the financial benefits of initiatives such as this are tangible and we expect to save £185,000 over a three year period simply as a result of our allocation software and the sheer number of minicabs we have on the road.  The joint benefit of cost reduction and environmental improvement was reflected in Boris Johnson’s speech.  Speaking at City Hall yesterday, the Mayor said: “In lean economic times, there are real financial savings to be made for businesses by becoming more energy efficient, helping them to remain competitive.”

As we all know, Addison Lee have been banging hard on the environmental drum for several years and this further recognition makes all the hard work worthwhile.  Addison Lee Managing Director, Liam Griffin said: “We are delighted to be recognised by the Mayor for our achievements in carbon reduction in the capital and are proud to be part of the Green500 group of climate leaders.  Joining Green500 is a win-win situation for us; in tough economic times we are taking positive steps to boost our efficiency and save money, as well as doing our bit to reduce our carbon footprint.”

For the fifth consecutive year, Addison Lee will be exhibiting at The Business Travel Show at Earls Court 2 from February 10th to February 12th.  As ever, the show will be an excellent opportunity for our sales team to promote Addison Lee as London’s largest and most reliable minicab company.  However, this year we have even more reason to blow our own trumpets.  As we have known for sometime, Addison Lee are the only minicab company capable of delivering an on-demand pick up response time of within 15 minutes throughout Central London.  The trouble is, not everyone outside of Addison Lee knows this yet!

At this year’s show, Addison Lee will have our biggest site ever, with a 30m squared space.  Clients will have the opportunity to discuss recession busting account tariffs and our sales and account management teams will be on hand to answer any queries about Addison Lee or the minicab industry in general.  For that extra special touch, we will also be offering a complimentary shoe shining service to anyone visiting our stand and we will also be producing our very own Addison Lee newspaper to be handed out at the venue.

We’ll look at the Business Travel Show and what Addison Lee will be doing to promote our brand in more detail nearer the time. 

http://www.businesstravelshow.com

Cheers  JB