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Story URL: http://hardware.silicon.com/pdas/0,39024643,39120596,00.htm

Black cab drivers opt for O2 XDAs
GPRS means there's no excuse to not go south of the river that time of night...

By Jo Best

Published: Tuesday 11 May 2004

The PDA is making its way out of City boys' pockets and into black cabs, with the announcement that black-cab firm Xeta is giving all its taxi drivers an XDA II to help with booking jobs and locating customers' addresses.

The PDAs will act as what "an in-cab job booking terminal", so even when a cabbie isn't in his taxi, he can still receive details of the next pick-up and information about where punters' addresses are.

The XDA IIs won't just help the cabbies out, though. Xeta will be switching its taxis from the traditional Private Mobile Radio system to a mix of GPS and GPRS to help controllers find out where taxis are at any given time and locate the nearest black cab to a customer.

The network switch will also mean that cab operators will be able to communicate with their drivers outside the capital.

Geof Kaley, Xeta's MD, said taxi drivers were really taken with new system and the prospect of getting hold of an XDA is enticing new drivers to the profession.

The cabbie-centric applications that will run on the O2 PDA will be brought together by Xeta's own custom-developed software.