Given the expense, heft, and poor function of the radio I use at work. I find myself wondering about replacing it with a phone with push to talk services. My XDA is also shockingly crap. Why not scrap one or both.

-I head that orange offer (or maybe offered.. they no longer push it but maybe buisness clients can still enroll?) a service called "Talk Now" that none of their sales staff have ever heard of, has anyone used this?

-YouPoC sounds like an up and running provider in the UK. Rugged looking handsets, close in price to a radio.

-New nokia handsets will be push to talk compatible according to the Nokia website.. I dunno what protocol/service they will use.

-last option would be to scrap our crap windows mobile XDAs (crash 5-10 times a day, very slow, fragile) and get some sort of futuristic phones that can to push to talk, and run basic despatch software.
http://downloads.cnet.co.uk/0,39100207,39476638s,00.htm
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=320246525&mt=8
http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewSoftware?id=320149171&mt=8

I don't know if any of these are good enough or if anyone has written decent despatch software for the mac/iphone yet, but nothing could be much worse than what I am currently using (ROCS on a windows mobile XDA. The idea of NOT renting an XDA and radio from the company also has a lot of appeal. Couriers could buy smartphones, install the software, and maintain, charge, and replace the devices as necessary I suspect this would come to less than the £20 a week that some couriers pay. Companies waste many man-hours trying to get the XDAs to work with buggy software and an unstable operating system. City sprint supposedly has their own in-house tech guy to configure and fix the XDAs (I find it interesting that they use old units, the same software for ages, and still seem to have far better performance (jobs come through quickly) and battery life (seem to last the working day) than many other outfits.)

I think that the major problem we have is that despatch software is a fairly small niche market.. ROCs can't be arsed to fix the many problems that our software has because in the grand scheme of things we are a fairly small customer, running a soon to be obselete operating system (windows mobile will soon be replaced with the radically different windows phone 7 http://videos.cnet.co.uk/39045189.htm) and they will sell very few copies of any improved ROCs. So they offer us something that is a bit crap, knowing that no one else has anything much better on the market.
Maybe what we really need is someone to write reliable push-to-talk software for the iphone (or android thing whatever) as well as simple, basic despatch software that can handle billing and all the rest. Sell the office software for a lot of money to every courier company in the UK, and have a £10 app that every courier, mini-cab driver, etc. will purchase and run on their iphone.
Sadly this will probably never happen, as anyone with the ability to write such software would probably focus on a larger/more lucrative market.. and I doubt it will come from the courier company side of things, since anyone with the knowledge and drive to create such software probably wouldn't have become a courier in the first place.

I just had a look into the YouPOC service. They are run through Vodafone, can do voice/PTT packages, and it sounds like they have some sort of control/despatch software that can send through data. The only weak link would be the inability to take signatures. Maybe the way forward is to go back to paper for the signatures and use the Sonim XP3 for communications and details via text.

A place down in SW19 has second hand Sonim XP1s for £70 each. Why not buy some of these puppies at metro and kick start courier technology in London? Better yet call up YouPOC and use your clout within the Metro Buisness empire to get them to give you some demo phones for a couple weeks. Say that Metro might use them in its other operations and this could be their big chance to break into the graphics/fashion world. And insist they give me a free phone for coming up with the plan.

And what was wrong with analogue??
This digital shite is an utter waste of time... especially when the time is your money.

"Metro Buisness empire"? When where you last in London?

Graham,
Thanks for the heads up, the UK equivalent is about £400 a year.. so if these guys can get it working it would be completely worth it. What did you guys end up using in the end?

Bill-
Do you think our clients would accept a "real-time" email with the name and time of the POD but the signature on paper? I would think that most clients would loose faith in digital pretty quick if they actually saw the digital signatures. YouPOC has a despatch program of some sort (I didn't get the details) and we could use the Sonims to send couriers job details and return the time and Name for the POD. The Sonim XP3 Quest also has GPS functions and all the rest. We could tell clients that thisis the best of both worlds.. a return to iron clad legally binding signatures but they can still call the postroom and hassle the signee by name minutes after it has been dropped. Only one machine (Mobile, radio, and XDA all replaced) to carry, and you maybe keep a couple spares in the office.. if anyone breaks one the courier switches their sim over to the spare and is back up and running in minutes. Another selling point to the courier companies could be the fact that they wouldn't have to provide the units... makes us look more like contractors than employees. Each courier could purchase and maintain their own PTT phone, instead of paying £40-50 a month for their XDA and radio. Or every courier buys their own handset and the company supplies the SIMs set up for the company plan. The company could completely exit the XDA and radio repair/troubleshooting business. You think you could get those running the show to request a few trial units?

At Metro we Have a tumble dryer.

Agreed wit Janky and Will on the XDA issue.
Getting about 10 errors a day on the unit is not enjoyable.You going to deliver a parcel, want to get a signature and you have to log on back to system that takes at least 1 minute. It waste our time/money and makes us look like unprofessional muppets!
Than you asking if someone is doing anythink about it, and the answer is: We are monitoring the situation.....
6 months...CMON!
I understant that some clients want to have that electronic signature that looks nothink like the real one.(how many times the receptionist told you that doesn't look like my signature at all, my 2 year old child can sign better?)
Have it their way than, they are the clients. I just want that damn machine to work properly, if I have to pay for it!

Maybe the way to sell YouPOC PTT to the courier companies is this:

Never again will you have to listen to couriers whinge about who got what job! Imagine.. no one will ever storm into the office at half five and have a go about that direct job going next to his house that you gave to someone else. No more paranoid couriers beating down your door because they heard someone elses name five times on the channel whilst standing by. that has got to be worth something.

Another perk:
Your couriers won't constantlly hang about outside as they will be reachable anywhere with Vodafone mobile coverage. back to the old days of hanging out in coffee shops or bookstores. Drier, warmer, less surly couriers, and less complaints from the neighbors.

@will "Bill; as you know from the point of view of the riders the problem with the radios and XDAs is that essentially they do not provide the service that the they pay to receive. Anyone working a 20 day month is paying around £60; twice what I would pay for e-mail, broadband and TV from Virgin. If the service I received from Virgin was as unreliable as the one I get from my radio and XDA I would expect a refund or I would change provider. As a courier we don't have the option to change and are never offered a refund. It is an example, common I think to all courier companies, of the exploitation of our dodgy status in a way which, charitably, could be called unscrupulous. We are expected to be professional in the way we work and conduct ourselves but when it comes to the service we pay for we are expected to accept the privilege of putting up with something that is frequently amateurish."

I am not going to disagee with anything you say above, except to say that it is not true that Creative never offers or pays a refund. We frequently refund XDA & radio charges.

I say everyone should go back to homing pigeons.

in Paris some companies use phones now to communicate regularly with the controller – you call to check in, get “ok ‘ and the jobs pop up on your screen through internet connection. I’m not sure what software is used, but it really doesn’t seem too advanced.

The big point is that the hones we use have cameras – so we just take the photos of a customer’s signature or stamp, attach it to the job file, tick it as delivered and it goes off the list .

Yeah, there are annoying moments if you’re in a place with lov network coverage, but you just have to walk to the window then etc.

Bet you pob'd in no time tho. Which is how you could tell a courier from a scrapper lol anybody can read the xda. If it happens to be working.

hahahha yea ONE.ZEROOOOO.SEVEN Knightrider Pat used to have a dictaphone when we were back at Destinations. He would record every time the controller gave him a job. Then one day the controller accused him of getting some details wrong and fucking up a job. Little did he know that he had been recorded giving out the wrong details him self. I heard he was quite sheepish and apologetic when Pat arrived at the office and pressed play. Funny stuff

Yes, we really send them the digital PODs. That is the only reason we (and every other courier company) uses them. So we can send our clients PODs digitally.

Believe me, if we had a choice (which we don't, many purchasers won't even consider companies that don't offer digital capture & transmission of PODs - sounds great when you write it down, doesn't it?), we would not be using ROCS or any other software. I know that Lisa would get rid of them in an instant if she could.

Like I said above, I don't necessarily disagree with anything you say. Apart from expecting professionalism from a courier company. I do try to be as professional as possible, but given the state of the market (which is another way of saying, look at what our rivals get up to - and we have to match them on price) my hands are tied.

And it's worth saying that I raised all of this with my superiors, and we are going to look at it yet again, and go back to ROCS yet again, and raise it with them yet again.

There's not really much more that I can say here.

It looks like the modern push to talk services work over SIP (a protocol for establishing VoIP calls), over a mobile broadband connection. This has the advantage of making it independent of the mobile company - you don't need them to provide any special service. But it has the disadvantage that it can be no more reliable than your data connection. My Orange connection wouldn't be reliable enough to run your whole business on - it slows to a crawl about the time everyone goes home from work. You would have to find a more reliable provider, or perhaps they give priority to data from business customers or something?

Plonk Buffalo Bill on top of Creative Towers then get the old bugger to shout the work out over the rooftops.That way the whole of the west end will have to suffer the man's nonsensical controlling style and not just the riders.
Just suggestin'.

I think its his way of making work more interesting. Its still a shit docket, but now theres the element of surprise and mystery. Maybe the details will come through.

Or maybe Ill have to stand in the street and wait for 10 fucking minutes to find out where Im going, because they didnt come through and the controller was on the phone taking a booking, but that client whos waiting for their urgent pickup will totally understand, and will definitely use such a professional company again, and meanwhile Ill definitely be reimbursed for the chunk of my life that I wont get back.

FWIW i think we will all end up keeping PMR for as long as it's affordable. Data is great, quick, clear, and works 99.something % of the time, but the radio is about a different sort of communication - a good controller is a man manager (and a woman manager, obv, though statistically less likely), and you can't gee up, cheer up, or hold up people without communicating with them.

The problem with most XDA's is the platform - Microsoft just weren't that interested in mobile devices until a couple of other companies came along and obviously did - i haven't played with a Windows mobile 7 device yet, but i suspect no matter how stable it will be, it won't be suitable for us, because it isn't designed for us - what proportion of the mobile market are interested in signature capture?


There isn't a good device available now - we have the last few 3470's, and beyond that we are going to have to look at bricks (clunky chunky motorla devices) or think of something clever - i'll be interested to hear suggestions.

When the channel's really kicking, I prefer just quick 'details coming's because it keeps things snappy and fast. Everyone's getting their info and everyone's able to call in. If you have your XDA close to hand, you should be more than adept in pulling it out and reading it while on the go.

steven st? i forget

Long live the radio!!

Oh, and btw, Having the latest GPS enabled, trackable device is certainly not going to earn you more money. If clients book a direct/express/special/double rush/priority bike, they will expect to see it making its way (on their screen) to its destination with no stops/pick ups/ drops on the way... Controllers wont be able to give you any more...
"Carry on, carry on..."

Bill is, unsurprisingly given his experience and the number of different angles he's seen this industry from, right.

I'm no apologist for the XDA(MDA, mobile device, whatever), but the fact is that the genie is out of the bottle. I've seen it happen with a number of "enhancements" to what is essentially a pretty simple service. Mobile signature capture, and to only a slightly lesser extent, GPS capture is a big deal for the client - you have to ask why they are paying us the money in the first place - why do they want a thing that is in point A to actually be in point B? Because ultimately it is worth money to them. After all, whether anyone here likes it or not, the courier industry is an industry, and therefore plays by the rules of the socio economic system that calls for it and supports it. I won't lecture you on Marx, there's others here better qualified and more enthusiastic than me.

So, one company says "we can e-mail you a signature the instant a parcel is delivered", it appeals to their needs, or at least the needs they feel they are satisfying by paying the courier - immidiacy, security, peace of mind, and to a lesser extent image and economy. The other companys have to follow suit, or they lose out.

Similarly, one company says "we can let you see that when you pay a premium rate for a premium service, you get your moneys worth", everyone is going to be expected to provide it - what starts as a USP becomes an entry level requirement in a very short period of time - think cameras on mobile phones, think safety belts in cars, think the light that goes on in the fridge when you open it - none of them are the core product, they have started as extras, and become standards.

Now i'm a great one for embracing technology, but where's the downside? If you are neurotic enough to think that your courier company gives you an MDA so they can charge you enough money to profit from it, then i'm not interested in your world view. As it happens the company i work for supplements about 50% of the cost, and we have found that if you let people have something for free, they treat it as if it is worthless.

You don't want the client to see that you are not going one up on a non stop? There is a clue in the name, that's what they are paying for, that's what you are being paid twice as much or more for.

And of course it is easier for controllers - why is that a bad thing? You might get old and slow and have to be a controller yourself one day, and when you are trying to give out 800 sets of details in 8 hours on a radio with 30 couriers on the other end you'll be over the moon that you can say "head for Whitefriars, details coming through" rather than having to phonetically spell "Department of Molecular Endocrinology, off de Crespigny Park Road" over the air.

You don't have to stop, write it down, it eliminates mistakes, it takes the pressure off - but it's an enhancement - i would never advocate losing the radio. I remember bumping into an SD rider in the mid 90's when they were first experimenting with data. He had something the size of a cash register around his neck, and he was misreable - no human contact, he was just a part of the machine, with no feedback, input, nothing.

Finally, e-courier is a clever piece of marketing, and little else, in my opinion. They didn't invent mobile data in our industry, or tracking, though if you believe their wiki page they invented the courier industry, and for that matter the car, the spinning jenny, and fire. I shan't carry on, as i work for one of their competitors, so i'm biased - and one of the competitors that could reasonably claim to have been involved in introducing MDA's to the despatch industry.

Apologies if i'm teaching anyone to suck eggs.

I have to disagree, gently, Bill - though i'm aware of the fact that i am as capable as anyone of choosing arguments that suit my position, opinion or agenda, we all do that.

In the shell of a nut though, Most couriers aren't experienced at some point, and even those that are surely find the MDA, when it's working, which is sort of where we came in on this, anything other than an imposition? I love technology, but the idea of carrying two mobiles fills me with dread, so i'm not completely oblivious to what you are saying, but why not take the benefits of new technology if there is not a down side?

I have never met a controller who finds working data anything other than easier than working without, and actually i can hand on heart say that the majority of riders and drivers o have known over the years since data became a part of my world (maybe 500?) have preferred it.

You know that "buyers" will keep on trying to screw the price down, the data has nothing to do with it, any more than livery will, ISO accreditation, but at least data is easier than not data. I'm horrifed by the idea that there are riders having to carry extra GPS kit alongside their MDA.

To be fair Bill, when you first started despatching you were having to take POD's on wax tablets....