Fleet dispatch software for taxi and cab operators in India: a practical guide

A cab operator in India runs a business that most dispatch software was not designed for. The unit of sale is not a ride from A to B. It is a duty: eight hours and eighty kilometres, an airport drop at four in the morning, three days to Shirdi and back, or a car parked at a client's office for the month. Fleet dispatch software for taxi and cab operators has to understand those duties, the attached cars that cover half of them, and the GST invoice at the end. This guide sets out what to look for, with the questions to ask before you pay for anything.

Why cab dispatch in India is its own problem

Three things make Indian cab dispatch different from the taxi dispatch that software from other markets assumes. The first is the package. A local duty is sold as a block of hours and kilometres with a rate for each extra hour and extra kilometre, so the bill cannot be known until the car is back. The second is the attached car. Most operators own some vehicles and attach the rest from vendors and owner-drivers, which means the dispatcher is managing other people's cars, other people's documents and a payable for every duty. The third is the paperwork. The duty slip with its opening and closing kilometres is the evidence for the bill, and the bill has to be a GST tax invoice that a corporate client's accounts team will accept.

A dispatch tool that only matches a booking to the nearest driver solves none of the three. That is why many operators buy software, use it for a month and go back to the diary.

What a dispatcher needs on one screen

• Every booking for today and tomorrow in one list, whether it came by phone, from a corporate client's portal, from your website or from a travel agent's message.
• For each duty: the reporting time and place, the car type that was sold, the package, and whether a car and driver have been allotted.
• Which of your own cars and attached cars are free for that time, and which drivers are on another duty, on leave or off duty.
• A warning when the car's permit, fitness certificate, PUC or insurance has lapsed, or the driver's licence has, before the duty is given out and not after.
• Which duties should have started and have not, so someone calls the driver before the customer calls you.

In MobilityDrive this is the dispatch board: a list of duties with their state, backed by clash, leave and document checks at allotment. The page on fleet dispatch software shows each part, including the SLA rules that raise a breach when a duty is still unallotted close to its reporting time.

Local, outstation, airport and monthly: four duties, four behaviours

Ask any vendor to book one of each in front of you. A local package should carry its hours and kilometres and work out the extras when the duty closes. An outstation duty should count kilometres per day and add the driver's outstation and night allowance. An airport transfer should hold the flight number, because the reporting time moves when the flight does. A monthly cab for a company should be entered once and repeat, not be typed again every morning.

If the product treats all four as a trip with a pickup and a drop, the dispatcher will end up keeping the real rules in a notebook, and the bill will be wrong in the customer's favour or in yours. Either way someone argues.

Own cars, attached cars and the driver's phone

Sub-contracting is normal, so test it. Give a duty to an attached car and check three things: that the vendor's documents are checked like your own, that the vendor's cost is recorded against that duty, and that you can see at month end what you owe each vendor and what tax you deducted. An operator who cannot see margin per duty on attached cars is guessing at half the business.

Then put the driver app in a driver's hand. He should see the duty, the customer's name and the reporting address, start the duty, and enter opening and closing kilometres, tolls and parking without calling the office. The customer should be able to confirm the slip on the phone or from a link. Check the language as well. MobilityDrive's driver app is available in English and Hindi as well as Arabic. A duty slip that arrives on paper three days later is the reason invoices go out late. If you are still on paper, our free duty slip format shows the fields a slip should carry, and the cab fare calculator works out a package or outstation quote.

From the duty slip to a GST invoice

Dispatch software that stops at the end of the trip leaves the hardest part to a clerk. The kilometres on the slip have to be priced from the client's contract, the tax split into CGST and SGST or IGST by place of supply, the invoice numbered in an unbroken series for the financial year, and an IRN generated if e-invoicing applies to you. When the client pays after deducting TDS, the receipt has to record both figures or the invoice will show as short-paid for ever.

Our guide to the GST invoice for cab operators explains what the bill must show, and taxi and cab fleet software in India describes how MobilityDrive handles each duty type through to the Tally voucher. A blank GST cab invoice format in Excel and PDF is free to download.

Seven questions to ask a vendor

• Can I define my own packages, with extra kilometre and extra hour rates, per client?
• What happens if I allot a car whose insurance expired yesterday, or a driver who is already on a duty?
• Can I allot to an attached car and see its cost and my margin on that duty?
• Does the driver record kilometres, tolls and parking on the phone, and can the customer confirm?
• Will it raise a GST tax invoice from that duty slip, with an IRN if I need one?
• How do I record TDS that a company deducted when it paid?
• What do I pay per month, and what is charged per duty or per car?

What it should cost, and what it should not do

Pricing models differ from one product to the next: per car, per duty, per user or a flat monthly plan, and a low headline price often covers booking and a driver app only. Decide which stages you want covered before you compare prices. MobilityDrive publishes its plans: they start from 2,500 rupees a month for dispatch, with higher plans that add GST e-invoicing and corporate billing, plus a small per-duty charge. The pricing page has the detail.

Be clear about what you are not buying. Software for booked duties is not a fare meter for street-hail taxis and it is not a ride-hailing marketplace with its own customers. It will not find you business. It will stop you losing the business you already have to missed duties and disputed bills, which for most operators is the larger number.