Dial TAX for a Taxi
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r-L A SCHEME whereby a person in London requiring a taxi need only dial TAX on the telephone is being sponsored by the London taxi branch of the British Legion, although the General Post Office has to be persuaded that the precedent entailed in sanctioning it will be in the public interest. There are no technical objections, states the originator of the idea. Mr. W. A. Gold, B.Se.(Eng.). The G.P.O. could arrange for all TAX diallings to be routed to a central office by the installation of extra wiring at each of the automatic London exchanges. There would be a staff 'at the central office, which would have about 12 manual switchboards. Each operator would have an alphabetical street guide with the telephone numbers of the four nearest cab ranks indicated against each thoroughfare.
On receiving a call, the operator would ask the caller for his location and whether he wanted to be informed of the dispatch of his taxi. Assuming that he did, he would be 'asked to hold the line while the operator dialled each of the ranks nearest the caller until the assignment was accepted. The operator would then inform the caller, but it is expected that most people would not want to wait for acknowledgement of the dispatch of a cab, but would leave the arrangements to the operator.
If nonb of the four ranks responded, the operator would call a radio-taxi concern. This would happen quite often, says Mr. Gold, and radio-taxi companies need have no fear that the establishment of a dial-TAX system would be to their detriment. The telephone system would rely on their continued existence to ensure its smooth working. Also, radio-cab operators would benefit from the telephone system by being able to pass on to it those demands which they could not handle.
The benefit of the scheme to the public is obvious and taxi proprietors would run fewer unremunerative miles. cl I