New taxi app prepares for Europe-wide launch

Taxi apps offering mobile ride tracking and payments have been featured before on our virtual pages, but we recently came across a company giving us cause to revisit the concept. While many cities still rely on traditional methods for ordering and paying for a cab, Get Taxi is planning to change this, with an ambitious Europe-wide launch set for the beginning of August. The app — which enables users to order, pay for and track their taxis, as well as earning reward points for free rides — has already been running in beta in Israel for the last few months. According to a report in TechCrunch, the European expansion will begin in London, followed by Moscow two months later, shortly followed by France, Germany, Spain and Italy. The report notes that in Europe alone there are 600,000 taxis of which the majority (unlike in the US) are independent contractors, who could be paying USD 5,000 per year for dispatch services. Get Taxi, on the other hand, will offer taxi companies it’s own operating hardware for free, charging EUR 2.99 per day for unlimited taxi orders. While the app features several add-on features — such as enabling both driver and rider to view each others’ previous ride ratings — the real interest is the approach GetTaxi and founder Shahar Smirin are taking with their expansion, attempting to launch across six major European cities in such a small space of time, in an effort to cement a firm stronghold in the market. A launch as ambitious as this obviously carries huge risks, but equally offers great rewards. We’ll be watching Get Taxi with interest, and we suggest that expansion-minded startups around the world do the same!