The first weekend of the Mooloolaba taxi rank FlatFare trial has been called a “moderate success”.

About 10% of Suncoast Cabs customers chose to use the flat rate service on Saturday night and company director Clark Chappel envisioned the number of users would grow as more people learnt about the service.

“On Friday night, it was a promotional and educational night only. We handed out flyers and spoke to people about the new service,” Mr Chappel said.

“We did manage to move 70 people in 11 taxis on Saturday night under the FlatFare scheme, which is close to 10 % of our average customers from that rank.

“Once the education process kicks in and people understand what it is about and the regular users understand the process, we expect that percentage to grow.”

FlatFare uses a similar system to bus zones, with customers paying a flat fee up front to go to a certain area. For example, Nambour, which falls in zone 9, would incur a flat fare of $27 for a single customer, $39 for a couple or $59 for a group of five going to the same destination.

Under the normal taxi system, a single fare to Nambour from Mooloolaba could cost up to $42.

“One person wanting to go to Maroochydore from Mooloolaba is a flat rate of $7. Which is not bad at three in the morning, considering that your previous drink probably cost more than that,’’ Mr Chappel said.

“But it is also about maximising our services. It will make our fleet more efficient. Usually if we had two couples from the uni wanting to get home from Mooloolaba and they didn’t organise themselves, we would have two cars going out to Sippy Downs. But with FlatFare, there would only be one car heading out there.’’

From midnight until 5am on Friday and Saturday nights, the Mooloolaba rank will have two taxi marshalls – one for users of FlatFare and another for those wanting to catch a taxi as normal.

http://www.thedaily.com.au/news/2007/oct/02/flatfare-taxi-scheme-fair-start/