Wheelchair Accessible Transport

clusk007

Hi All,

Early last year I posted about www.wheelchairtaxi.ie, a website I have developed to make it easier to find wheelchair accessible transport.

Well over the past couple of months I have been working hard on a brand-new, much more professional site which went live in October last year. You can search for all forms of wheelchair accessible transport in your area and I'm hoping it will go a long way to solving many of the problems associated with this type of transport.

I did an interview yesterday on 'Mooney Goes Wild' on Rte Radio 1 about Wheelchairtaxi.ie and where the idea came from. You can listen to it here (41 min in).. http://www.rte.ie/radio/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=9%3A10101143%3A82%3A14%2D01%2D2013%3A

Would love to get your feedback on the idea and the site.

Regards,
Stephen

Johnboy1951

I like the idea of the site and found it easy to navigate - I thought.

I did one search, for a taxi in Ennis, Co. Clare ..... the results were not of any use .......

Tommy Begley Taxi Service & Mullingar Taxi-Cabs
Home Base:
Mullingar

ross cabs
Home Base:
New Ross

tony morrissey
Home Base:
Douglas

So from a results point of view being offered taxis in Douglas, New Ross or Mullingar is hardly useful.

If no suitable taxis are registered in the area, surely the user should be told so and not offered taxis from 100+ miles away.

So there is something wrong with the results the site is offering.
There are, the last time I looked, a few accessible taxis in the Clare area.
Why do they not show in the results?




BTW, I listened to the interview (from 38 mins) and would like to add something ....

ALL drivers of wheelchair accessible taxis should be required to prove their continuing competence in the use of the equipment as well as proving to the licencing authority that they have equipment that is in good condition and safe .... as well as permanently present in the vehicle.
Refresher courses should be attended at least once every year to ensure that they can operate the equipment properly.

Those who fail to attend or are not competent, or whose vehicles and equipment are not up to standard should lose their licence until the problems are rectified.

Good luck with the site

clusk007

Hi John,

Many thanks for the feedback, and very helpful indeed. The search results is something I do want to refine when I have more finance in place. The way it works at the moment is when the driver signs up they tick the areas they cover so it's not for me to dictate that they shouldn't show up when in fact they themselves decide they cover that area.

If there is a driver from your area that you search, they will show first in the listings followed by any other drivers who cover that area but I would like to rank this in terms of distance.

I fully agree with you about continuous assessment with the drivers and I have a couple of ideas on how to attract more drivers into the industry which I'm working on with some taxi drivers at the moment. It is important to get the balance between attracting drivers, having adequate numbers and having a certain amount of standards without putting people off.

Thanks again for the feedback

Johnboy1951

clusk007 wrote: »

Hi John,

Many thanks for the feedback, and very helpful indeed. The search results is something I do want to refine when I have more finance in place. The way it works at the moment is when the driver signs up they tick the areas they cover so it's not for me to dictate that they shouldn't show up when in fact they themselves decide they cover that area.

If there is a driver from your area that you search, they will show first in the listings followed by any other drivers who cover that area but I would like to rank this in terms of distance.

I fully agree with you about continuous assessment with the drivers and I have a couple of ideas on how to attract more drivers into the industry which I'm working on with some taxi drivers at the moment. It is important to get the balance between attracting drivers, having adequate numbers and having a certain amount of standards without putting people off.

Thanks again for the feedback

Is there no list of accessible taxis that could be used to populate the data base?

If a driver from Wexford ticks the box that he covers Co. Clare then there is something very wrong somewhere ......

For the site to be useful, the results need to be accurate.

If I travel out of my local area, and attempt to use the site from my phone some night, I possibly would not spot that the result produced was 100 miles away -- until after phoning and wasting time and money.
That happening would most certainly cause a negative response to the site.

I have no suggestions ..... only pointing out that as a user, bad results are worse than not having the site at all.

Sorry to be so negative.
I believe the idea is good, and the service it could provide is valuable ..... when the results produced are meaningful.

regards.

clusk007

I fully understand where you're coming from and agree that the results need to be more accurate. Funding is a major issue but I'm hoping to have something sorted soon so will definitely love to improve on this. Thanks for the feedback and don't worry about the negativity, all this helps to improve things.

Mental Mickey

I'm doing a search(just to see how your site works) for wheelchair taxis in my area(Dublin 20), and am getting results of taxi drivers from as far away as Mullingar!!!!!

Also, the search I did came back with 3 pages of results, but I am unable to navigate away from the first page of results - when I try to go to page 2 etc, I get taken back to the top of page 1?

clusk007

Yes the search feature does need to be refined and it looks like we are going to do it based on longitude and latitude but I need to get the money together first to make this happen! Thanks for the feedback though

Mental Mickey

clusk007 wrote: »

Yes the search feature does need to be refined and it looks like we are going to do it based on longitude and latitude but I need to get the money together first to make this happen! Thanks for the feedback though

It's a brilliant idea, but I think you maybe should've held back on the launch until all the glitches etc were ironed out???

This is not a criticism, more of a suggestion.

clusk007

Maybe so but to be honest it has helped a lot of people to find transport so far. Glitches come and go as I have learned but it is 99% there.

clusk007

Just to let everyone know we have totally redeveloped the search function on the site and it now produces far more accurate results.

This is done on the longitude and latitude of the place searched and results are ranked in distance from that original search.

We have also added a map feature which I think is a nice touch to give perspective on distance.

I hope you find the new search on www.wheelchairtaxi.ie much better than what was previously there and thanks for the feedback which brought about this change.

Stephen

Johnboy1951

I am happy to read you have acted on the comments made earlier in this thread.

Unfortunately the changes have not made much difference from my one quick test.

Try this ...

Type: Taxi
County: Clare
Town: Newmarket-on-Fergus

Search Results:

Joeo shea
Home Base:
Bruff (county Limerick)


Assumpta Begley
Home Base:
Mullingar


Tommy Begley Taxi/Mullingar Taxi
Home Base:
Mullingar


It appears to this user that the way this has been 'fixed' is to add every town and village to the list for each service.

The first time I accepted this was just 'teething' problems etc ....... but this has the look of misrepresentation.


Am I supposed to believe that each one taxi service I link to actually services all the locations listed on the page?

http://www.wheelchairtaxi.ie/listing?id=1283

or this one?

http://www.wheelchairtaxi.ie/listing?id=1324

or this one?

http://www.wheelchairtaxi.ie/listing?id=1328


I did not bother to look any further.

When I order a taxi I expect to order one locally based ..... as in ~10 miles radius, hopefully.

I don't expect to be ringing someone from Mullingar at 2 am to get a taxi from Shannon to Ennis!

Those results are worse than useless.

It seems that what is required is that each service only includes the exact location of their service ...... which could be in multiple places if they have taxis in different locations.

But the implication here is that a taxi from Mullingar services West Clare, which I find ridiculous.

:rolleyes:

Oh yeah! I also searched from Shannon, and got even more interesting results!

Taxis from Cork, Douglas, Ballhaunis, Athlone, Athleague, Carrick-on-Shannon, and even Letterkenny!


A bad service is worse than none.

Did you ever check the results? ....... one must assume you did as part of testing the changes you made on foot of previous comments.

I can therefore only conclude you are well aware of results such as those I have listed.


My advice is take the site down until you do it right.

Johnboy1951

I did another test ....... this time selecting Duncannon, Co. Wexford.
Duncannon is on the Waterford estuary.

Lo and behold!

That man Begley wants to come down from Mullingar to provide me a taxi from Duncannon into Waterford for a few pints.

Yeah! Right!

So I did a third test ........ this time selecting Castleisland, Co. Kerry ......... and guess what?

Assumpta AND Tommy Begley, from Mullingar want to drive down to Castleisland to bring me from the pub, out the three miles to my house on the Ballydesmond road.

I wonder how much they might charge for that service?

Oh yes I got one Co. Kerry hit ..... from Listowel!

clusk007

Hi John Boy,

Yes thanks for the feedback, I am aware that these drivers seem to cover every part of Ireland! The driver is asked to complete the areas they cover when signing up, again it is not up to me to decide as each driver is individual but from your results they are the closest drivers to you listed on the site.
I am undertaking a big push to encourage more drivers to sign up so we will hopefully get some from your area.

The drivers who have ticked every location will be contacted tomorrow to refine their own listings. The search however is far more accurate.

I'm from Swords myself and the search Works very well for my area as there are a couple of drivers in the local town as well as some in the surrounding towns.
More drivers signing up will fix this problem and also me monitoring results like you have highlighted above.

thanks again, this all helps improve things.

Johnboy1951

clusk007 wrote: »

Hi John Boy,

Yes thanks for the feedback, I am aware that these drivers seem to cover every part of Ireland! The driver is asked to complete the areas they cover when signing up, again it is not up to me to decide as each driver is individual but from your results they are the closest drivers to you listed on the site.
I am undertaking a big push to encourage more drivers to sign up so we will hopefully get some from your area.

The drivers who have ticked every location will be contacted tomorrow to refine their own listings. The search however is far more accurate.

I'm from Swords myself and the search Works very well for my area as there are a couple of drivers in the local town as well as some in the surrounding towns.
More drivers signing up will fix this problem and also me monitoring results like you have highlighted above.

thanks again, this all helps improve things.

Maybe the option for the drivers to tick more than one location should be withdrawn.
At least then they are likely to tick their base area which would be useful to the site user.

If you are assessing some things on geo-location, then it should not be a big problem to filter the results in a similar manner ...... even offering the site user an option of 10, 20 and even 30 mile radius from their location. If there are none registered near me than I don't want any results!

The results would be meaningful at least.

For instance if there are no taxis registered with the site within 10 miles of Duncannon, then I won't want to use them ..... but I might expend my search to 20 or 30 if desperate.

It was noticeable though, Duncannon being quite close to Waterford, that no Waterford taxi was listed in the results.

Yet Begley Taxis Mullingar were.
Utterly stupid result.

To be blatant about it ....... the results are indicating that there is some tie-up between the site and the Mullingar provider/s.
If that is not the case then I suggest you need to attend to the biased results immediately

Mental Mickey

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

I am happy to read you have acted on the comments made earlier in this thread.

Unfortunately the changes have not made much difference from my one quick test.

Try this ...

Type: Taxi
County: Clare
Town: Newmarket-on-Fergus

Search Results:

Joeo shea
Home Base:
Bruff (county Limerick)


Assumpta Begley
Home Base:
Mullingar


Tommy Begley Taxi/Mullingar Taxi
Home Base:
Mullingar


It appears to this user that the way this has been 'fixed' is to add every town and village to the list for each service.

The first time I accepted this was just 'teething' problems etc ....... but this has the look of misrepresentation.


Am I supposed to believe that each one taxi service I link to actually services all the locations listed on the page?

http://www.wheelchairtaxi.ie/listing?id=1283

or this one?

http://www.wheelchairtaxi.ie/listing?id=1324

or this one?

http://www.wheelchairtaxi.ie/listing?id=1328


I did not bother to look any further.

When I order a taxi I expect to order one locally based ..... as in ~10 miles radius, hopefully.

I don't expect to be ringing someone from Mullingar at 2 am to get a taxi from Shannon to Ennis!

Those results are worse than useless.

It seems that what is required is that each service only includes the exact location of their service ...... which could be in multiple places if they have taxis in different locations.

But the implication here is that a taxi from Mullingar services West Clare, which I find ridiculous.

:rolleyes:

Oh yeah! I also searched from Shannon, and got even more interesting results!

Taxis from Cork, Douglas, Ballhaunis, Athlone, Athleague, Carrick-on-Shannon, and even Letterkenny!


A bad service is worse than none.

Did you ever check the results? ....... one must assume you did as part of testing the changes you made on foot of previous comments.

I can therefore only conclude you are well aware of results such as those I have listed.


My advice is take the site down until you do it right.

There's no other way of saying it. I have been thinking the same thing, but I didn't know how to say it in a "PC" way.....??

clusk007

Hi John Boy and Mickey,

Its feedback like you have provided above which is helping me to constantly improve things so don't worry about being 'pc'.

I have added the 'distance' feature under 'Sort by' on the results page which you can select after you search an area.
Thanks for suggesting this and will make the results even more accurate.

Unfortunately there are no drivers currently on the site who cover your area John boy but if you are speaking to any please encourage them to sign up, I'm doing all I can on my end.

Any more feedback or ideas let me know.
Regards,

Stephen

Mental Mickey

clusk007 wrote: »

Hi John Boy and Mickey,

Its feedback like you have provided above which is helping me to constantly improve things so don't worry about being 'pc'.

I have added the 'distance' feature under 'Sort by' on the results page which you can select after you search an area.
Thanks for suggesting this and will make the results even more accurate.

Unfortunately there are no drivers currently on the site who cover your area John boy but if you are speaking to any please encourage them to sign up, I'm doing all I can on my end.

Any more feedback or ideas let me know.
Regards,

Stephen

I think the site should be inactive until you have it working right? Doesn't really create a good impression if things like the search function are all over the place??

clusk007

What exactly is not working right now Mickey?

Johnboy1951

clusk007,
it is good to see improvements; thank you for taking on board the feedback as much as is possible.

Will you try the following link please and explain to me why there are 5 results, one of which is within the specified distance and the other four outside?

Does this mean that regardless of actual results, 'featured drivers' are always returned in the results?

I am trying to figure out how the results are arrived at.

http://www.wheelchairtaxi.ie/search?type=Taxi&county=25&town=Arthurstown+&sort=featured&view=&distance=20&input=

EDIT

Here is another search which returns useless results

http://www.wheelchairtaxi.ie/search?type=Taxi&county=3&town=Newmarket+on+Fergus&sort=distance&view=&distance=20&input=

I have to say again ........ if there are no results within the specified limit I enter, or no results for the type of transport within that limit, then there should be no results returned, IMO.
Useless results are worse than none.

Yes I understand there are few signed up to the site at present ...... quite understandable.
That is no reason to give me result that are more suitable to someone 50 or 100 miles away though.

..... and yet another ......

http://www.wheelchairtaxi.ie/search?type=Taxi&county=8&town=Castleisland&sort=Taxi&view=&distance=20&input=

Those are the only three searches I have done.
None of the results are what one would expect ........ accurate.

regards.

Mental Mickey

clusk007 wrote: »

What exactly is not working right now Mickey?

See the post above this one. None of the results returned are accurate. I get pretty much the same thing when I search.

Johnboy1951

Just checked the site again ....... Congrats!

It appears to be functioning as one would expect ....... returning results only on the basis of the options chosen.

Note ... I only checked the three examples I gave earlier and only for taxi ..... but the results did vary according to the distance I allowed for the search.

One small bug ..... when there are no results shown, and thus no map, the search banner is repeated, which is confusing, as the second instance can be (apparently) used, but it does not affect the search.

Coming together

Johnboy1951

Seems things have gone back a step today ...... the distance selection is not being used at all, but is defaulting to 20 miles regardless of user selection.

clusk007

Hi John boy,

Should be working okay now.

It's amazing the problems you encounter if one thing is changed but should be sorted.

Cheers again for the feedback and this enables us to continually improve.

Regards,

Stephen

Johnboy1951

Hi,
Where there are no results returned, such as from this search
http://www.wheelchairtaxi.ie/search?type=Taxi&county=8&town=Castleisland&sort=Taxi&view=&distance=20&input=

the search 'banner' is repeated.

This 'apparently provides two banners for the user to adjust the search criteria.
I don't know about others, but my tendency is to use the lower one to edit the criteria and search again ...... which will not work.
The search uses the details from the upper set of criteria.

That lower one is apparently only displayed in the absence of a map.

Maybe the map should always be displayed, even if there are no valid results?
That would help visually ...... the location of the user displayed as normal, just no results in the map.

On the subject of the map and distance settings ..... because the search includes all sorts of suitable transport, is it possible to look again at the distance settings ..... maybe add a couple for long distance, or even country wide at the extreme.
Alternatively it might be possible to use a slider for distance, and even mark the map with a circle from the user's location?

The above are just musings

The main thing is to get the results correct and to avoid any ambiguity in editing the search criteria.

Getting rid of that second 'entry banner' would go a long way to avoid confusion.

clusk007

hi John,

The search is yielding no results because there are no drivers on the site within your selected distance that cover the area.

can you provide me with a screenshot of what you mean? I will send you a PM with my e-mail address.

Regards,

Stephen

Johnboy1951

clusk007 wrote: »

hi John,

The search is yielding no results because there are no drivers on the site within your selected distance that cover the area.

Yes that is the point I am making ...... what do you see on the page under these circumstances?

Do you see two places to edit the search criteria?

Only one of those will actually work ....... and there is no need for two in any case.

Also no map is shown, which might be related.

can you provide me with a screenshot of what you mean? I will send you a PM with my e-mail address.

Regards,

Stephen

clusk007

Okay the bottom search bar is now working perfectly, you may need to clear your cache if using chrome.

It needs to be there as the results display between the two but thanks for the feedback.

Regards,

Stephen

Johnboy1951

clusk007 wrote: »

Okay the bottom search bar is now working perfectly, you may need to clear your cache if using chrome.

It needs to be there as the results display between the two but thanks for the feedback.

Regards,

Stephen

I will check the update a little later.


Have you considered displaying the map even though there are no results, but it would still show the user-chosen location?

I doubt it would be much 'help' to the user, but it would keep the page consistent visually ..... which does affect usability.