The latest in Eftpos technology will be making life easier for Rotorua taxi drivers and for their customers - particularly overseas visitors.
New-generation, mobile point-of-sale terminals have been installed in all 34 of Rotorua Taxis' fleet as part of a large nationwide rollout by taxi billing-solutions provider TaxiCharge NZ. Rotorua Taxis chairman George Melrose said the cars' technology was now more advanced than many shops'.
"We all had Eftpos before, but now it is all security coded - a lot of shops don't have this yet," he said.
As well as being more difficult to defraud, the new terminals complied with international Eurocard, MasterCard and Visa standards for credit cards, making the system more reliable for overseas visitors, who made up a good proportion of the firm's business.
All Eftpos machines needed to meet the standards by May 31 and Melrose said it would make life easier during the Rugby World Cup in September and October, when Rotorua was likely to host a significant number of the 85,000 international visitors expected to come to New Zealand for the event.
"This will cater for all the World Cup people coming from overseas. Before there were sometimes problems with the chip and pin cards from foreign visitors, but not any more."
More reliable Eftpos availability improved security as well, as more people were able to pay by card and drivers could carry less cash on them.
Rotorua Taxis' new technology will also benefit local customers as the system is capable of accepting travel cards such as Wellington Regional Council's Snapper card.
Melrose said the Bay of Plenty Regional Council's travel discount cards could be incorporated into the system in the future, making transactions simpler for the people using the card, and the drivers.
But while the technology offered immediate and longer-term benefits, it also came at a price. The Eftpos update added to the cost of installing security cameras in all cabs in areas with at least one taxi firm of 30 or more cars. "We are still negotiating on the cameras - they have to be in by August 1."
Melrose said the law change would improve security for drivers and customers, but was primarily aimed at the larger centres where there had been incidents of violence against cab drivers.
"In Australia, this cut crime by 95 per cent, but we don't really have a lot of problems in Rotorua."
The cameras are only part of expense involved. The feed from the cars must be monitored 24 hours a day and he said that would be uneconomical for many smaller operators and some of those businesses would close as a result. The two required investments in technology had delayed the upgrading of the firm's dispatch system. That was run out of Auckland, and while Melrose said it was a good system, there had been a few hitches because the operators did not know the area.
Rotorua cabbies pick up Eftpos
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