Digitizing the Taxi Business – Lessons from GoodMoovs

1. What are shared taxi fleets and why did you start your taxi digitization initiative?

Shared taxi fleets describe a model where a taxi operator provides a pool of vehicles for independent drivers to rent for their shifts, instead of drivers owning the cars themselves.

Our initiative started with an inbound lead from a taxi operator who was already running a shared fleet. They needed a more flexible solution with better performance. Agility and flexibility are in GoodMoovs’ DNA. Our commitment to shared mobility allows us to respond quickly and design solutions around each client’s specific needs. When we sat down and looked at their needs, we realized there was a very strong match with the car sharing functionalities we already had at GoodMoovs. In this case, we only needed to develop small additional features to make their business case work.

2. How do you enable digital fleet operations with your software?

We provide a holistic white-label platform that combines everything an operator needs. This includes an app for the drivers to book a vehicle for their shift, comprehensive back-office tools, and 24/7 call center support.

The 24/7 aspect is critical because the taxi business is an around-the-clock operation. Especially in urban regions like Amsterdam, taxis operate just as much at night as they do during the day.

Some of our clients like RentaCab want to ensure their brand is consistent across the board. So, instead of a GoodMoovs app, their drivers download a branded app with their logos, their specific FAQs, and tailored functionalities. Under the hood, it’s our engine, but to the driver, it’s entirely the operator’s ecosystem.

3. What are the major challenges in operating shared taxi fleets, and how can you solve them with technology?

One major challenge for operating a shared taxi fleet is keyless access. It makes the entire operations possible but requires constant vehicle connectivity. Reliable telematics like CloudBoxx ensure vehicle’s uptime so that drivers can always access their cars.

Another critical challenge is driver accountability and damage control. Since drivers of shared taxi fleets do not own their vehicles, they might care less about the condition and integrity of the car. Technology helps us address this by implementing accountability mechanisms for damages. Of course, we don’t want to act as a digital police. However, this data helps balancing flexible usage with mitigating unwanted costs for the operator.

4. Why did you choose the INVERS integration for digitizing taxi businesses?

The decision was twofold. First, it was a client-driven requirement. There were regular car sharing operators who wanted to work with us while already successfully running on INVERS hardware. They didn’t want to move away from CloudBoxx, so integrating INVERS was necessary to serve them.

But INVERS was also a strategic partner fit. We needed a partner that could supply us regardless of vehicle brand or age. Whether a car is five years or two weeks old, we need to get it up and running quickly and reliably. Compared to the alternatives, INVERS convinced with superior R&D behind products like CloudBoxx, allowing us to succeed in high-intensity taxi operations.

5. Which telematics signals are truly essential for taxi digitization and why?

In our day-to-day business, the engine running signal is absolute key. It is critical for reliability and knowing each vehicle’s status.

The second essential signal is State of Charge (SoC) which is paramount for EV taxi fleets. At GoodMoovs, we are also implementing energy functionalities like smart charging and hopefully vehicle-to-grid (V2G) in the future. Since we know exactly when a car is reserved next, optimizing charging to minimize local grid capacity becomes a “no-brainer” for cost savings.

6. Which KPIs best prove business impact for taxi operators?

The core KPI is the utilization rate. Operators of shared taxi fleets want their vehicles to be used as much as possible. Especially as their drivers are often not employees but independent business owners who pay for every minute they use the vehicle.

Mileage is another key indicator. It shows how well the taxi operation is performing and highlights seasonal patterns like the busy periods after summer or during the holidays.

Finally, turnover per vehicle is a very easy KPI to see how the business is really doing. Since we are talking about usage monetization per minute or hour, this metric directly correlates to operator performance.

7. What are the biggest rollout pitfalls when digitizing a taxi business?

One of the biggest pitfalls is dealing with hardware installation, especially with new vehicle models. For example, we recently integrated a fleet of BMW i5s for a client. We were the first to bring this model to market in this capacity, so the vehicle had to be analyzed before we could install telematics and ensure reliable operations.

8. What were your biggest successes when working with taxi operators?

Our biggest success has to be uptime and reliability. While our agreements now clarify that interruptions of one hour or less fall within our standard SLA and do not trigger liability, we still treat every minute as critical. We built our platform with deep redundancy because we know the stakes in the taxi business are incredibly high. Even with that one-hour buffer in place, we haven’t had any unusual outages in the 2.5 years since entering this segment. In a high-intensity industry, that level of stability is a massive win.

Another success is the market pull. Once we onboarded our first customer and proved the model worked, we saw additional operators join us. The market develops fast, especially in a country like the Netherlands, and our ability to deliver a stable, flexible solution has fueled our growth.

9. Looking ahead 2–3 years, how will digitalization affect the taxi industry?

I foresee continued growth of models with self-employed taxi drivers, particularly in markets where this is legally allowed. Schiphol Taxi Network (STN) in Amsterdam is a prime example of this development.

We will likely see traditional taxi companies shifting toward being fleet owners rather than employers. They will facilitate the vehicles and the technology, while the drivers run their own micro-businesses.

Further digitization could gradually move toward app-driven models. While it’s looking a bit further ahead, perhaps 10 to 15 years, we might see a convergence where the driver’s application and the end-user’s hailing app morph into one interface, similar to what we see with autonomous mobility pilots like Waymo. However, in the near term (2–3 years), the focus will remain on optimizing the driver and backend operational layers, rather than replacing consumer-facing apps like Uber or Bolt.

10. Are there any other new business models you are exploring?

Yes, specifically in the Netherlands, we are developing a “Parttime Lease” concept. This initiative turns a traditional personal lease car into a shareable asset. It allows the primary user to share the vehicle with family members, neighbors, or coworkers when they aren’t using it. Similar to shared taxi fleet models, this optimizes vehicle utilization and delivers significant cost savings for the primary user, month after month.

Thank you, Didier, for the interview and valuable insights on digitizing the taxis business!

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