Verifone Taxi Systems [1], which acquired the Curb cab-hailing app last fall [2], will launch an advance-booking feature in New York with a pilot project next month.
[3]It will be the first of its kind among several of the city’s various ride-hailing apps, and, if all goes as expected, it will launch across the city with Curb soon afterwards.
Verifone operates payment systems and backseat TVs in about 14,000 New York City taxis—including about half of all yellow cabs as well as many green cabs in the boroughs. It already had a cab-hailing app, Way2Ride prior to acquiring Curb, which it operates in 60 cities across the US. .
“We’ll continue to operate both Curb and Way2Ride in New York, but will transition everything later this year to Curb, and, at that time, Way2Ride app users will be asked to start using Curb,” says Jason Gross, global head of product and marketing, taxi systems and mobile, at VeriFone.
Verione competitor Creative Mobile Technologies (CMT) [4] has TVs and payment systems in the other half of all city yellow cabs and launched its cab-hailing app Arro last fall, while another app, Karhoo, is expected to launch next month in partnership with Verifone’s cabs and various livery-car services. Verifone is reportedly also working on integrating Curb with rival CMT’s system so that the app will hail rides from all 22,000 yellow and green cabs in the city
The moves are expected to greatly help the taxi business that has had to compete with Uber [5], which, unlike the cabs, has surge pricing.