A “reliable and friendly” shared taxi service has been launched in Wellingborough to provide people with an alternative and cheaper way to travel to work.
Tandem shared taxi service provides a new way to travel at a similar cost to using a bus. Passengers book journeys on an app. Tandem’s technology finds other people travelling the same way at the same time and matches them into shared taxis. Each passenger pays just for their seat rather than the whole vehicle so the price is much closer to a bus than the usual cost of a taxi.
The first route focuses on taking people from Wellingborough in Northamptonshire to large industrial estates at Thrapston and Raunds. Both are just 20 minutes away by car, but no viable public transport option exists to get workers there for most shift times. Even in the middle of the day, Wellingborough to Thrapston by bus can take over an hour and a half.
More routes will launch over the next 12 months in Wellingborough and beyond. Tandem is keen to hear from passengers which routes they’d like to see next.
Benny – the service’s first passenger – used the service to get to his job at DSV in Raunds. He described the service as “reliable and friendly” and noted it costs “a fraction of the price for a full taxi fare”.
Alex Shapland-Howes – Tandem’s CEO – said: “It’s a disgrace that a lack of public transport means some people can’t get to work – we’re proud to have created an affordable new way for people to get to Raunds and Thrapston. There’ll be lots more routes in the future!”
Passengers can try the service for free by going to www.ridetandem.co.uk or calling 01933 812235.
About Tandem
Tandem is a new company revolutionising transport for people living in towns and small cities.
Transport technology is about to undergo the most significant ‘leap forward’ since the invention of the internal combustion engine. Ride-sharing, electric vehicles and – soon – self-driving cars will transform how we move around where we live. But almost all companies working on these technologies are focused on large cities like London and New York.
Tandem takes the 21st century transport technologies emerging in big cities and adapts them for towns and smaller cities – places where traditional public transport has also often had less funding.