TaxiMagic, a user report

I saw TaxiMagic presented by Aimee Cardwell at Ignite Seattle last June, and set up an account soon after. But I did not try it until last week.

I normally start my business trips with a cab ride to the airport. All the rest of my travel planning and reservations are via the net, so actually making a voice call to a dispatcher feels out of place. Taxi Magic promises to take the process of using a cab into the early 21C.


Actually setting up my account, and then setting it up on my phone was needlessly complicated. I did it a few months ago, and so I hope they have streamlined the process.

They don't work in every city, or with every cab company.

They do work in Seattle, but instead of working with Yellow Cab (which is everywhere in Seattle, and often loiters in my neighborhood, so often I will have a cab at my door in under 5 minutes), they work with Orange Cab, so it took longer for the cab, once dispatched, to reach me.

Actually setting up my account, and then setting it up on my phone was needlessly complicated. I did it a few months ago, and so I hope they have streamlined the process.

The Android app needs some work. It has a "map mode", that is supposed to show where the taxi is. But it kept zooming out to also display the start and destination points, even when I didn't want it to. Minor annoyance. Also, occationally it would time out on the server side, and ask me to "try again". This something that needs fixing, both needing a better protocol, and better scaling.

After I first requested a cab, it took about 10 minutes to update the status to "taxi dispatched". That was long enough to make me start wondering if it was working at all. They need to get better at immediate user feedback, and also fix that delay in finding and dispatching a cab.

It took maybe half an hour for the cab to get to me. That isn't really their fault. I got used to Seattle Yellow Cab, which loiters in my neighborhood, so I would often get picked up in less than 5 minutes.

Here is where TaxiMagic is awesome, and why I will keep using it. Paying for a cab is a pain. They are the only handwritten credit card receipts I end up with when doing expenses, and the receipts are never complete, and are hard to read, and the process slows down getting out of the cab at the destination.

With TaxiMagic, when I got to the airport, I pressed a button on the app, and the bill was paid. Period. And a nice clear receipt got emailed to me as a PDF. That itself is worth the whole thing for me.

I hope they iron out those wrinkles, get into all the cities, get all the "computer dispatched" cab companies to get with the program.

And as it is now for me, Seattle Yellow Cab doesn't get my business any more, Seattle Orange Cab does, just because of Taxi Magic.