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Oiii! New taxis are hitting the road in Melbourne

By Administrator | 23 January 2018

Ride share services such as Uber may have torn apart the taxi industry but the founders of Oiii believe there's still room for a new government-approved taxi service provider.

The taxi provider launched in Melbourne on Thursday night and Oiii's operators say 50 new multi-colour Oiii cars will be appearing on Melbourne's roads and taxi ranks during the next month, with plans for more than 1000 Oiii cars by June.

Founder Dennis Jeffees held one of the original licences for Europcar in Australia and has put $2.5 million in funding into the venture.

"The industry is in a sort of transition period," says Jeffees. "When I first saw Uber five years ago in America I looked at the technology and thought 'Wow, why hasn't the taxi industry got this?' MTData and Cabcharge have had the business tied up. I thought 'How hard can it be'?"

Since then Jeffees has been busy developing Oiii's technology.

"We have taken the best of the existing taxi industry and the best of ride share and tried to meld them together," he says. "We are hoping to have 2000 cabs here in Melbourne within 12 months."

Customers will be able to hail Oiii taxis down, find them at cab ranks or order them through an app.

Oiii does not have surcharges or booking fees and includes Wi-Fi in all cars, and driver and passenger rating systems. Read more

Cara Waters - Brisbane Times - 18 Jan 2018

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