AI phone agent for taxi firms: how it answers and books a job

An AI phone agent is the part of AI booking software that taxi owners ask about most, and the hardest to picture until you've heard one. This guide follows a booking call from the first ring to the confirmation text, then covers the divert, the law, and where your office takes over.

What is an AI phone agent for a taxi firm?

An AI phone agent is software that answers your booking line in your firm's name and talks to the caller the way a call-taker would. It listens, asks the booking questions, quotes the fare from your price list and saves the job, with nobody in the office picking up.

Voicemail leaves you a list of callbacks. A phone agent leaves you a list of bookings. The same test applies to any AI answering service for taxi companies, or a taxi call answering service in the UK staffed by people: ask whether it takes a message or books the job.

A taxi booking phone agent is narrower than a general AI receptionist, which takes messages and puts people through. A private hire phone agent has one job: turn a call into a booked job with a pickup, a destination, a time, a name and a price. Our guide to an AI receptionist for a taxi company sets the two side by side.

What happens on a booking call, step by step?

A booking call with a phone agent follows the same order a good controller uses. Here's an airport run booked at 11pm on a Wednesday:

1. The call reaches the agent. The office didn't pick up, or it's after hours, so the divert sends the call on.
2. It answers in your firm's name. A sensible set-up says it's an automated booking assistant.
3. It asks for the pickup. The caller says "the Red Lion on Station Road". The agent looks the place up and, if two places match or the match is only partial, it asks which one.
4. It asks where to and when. "The airport, Friday, 4.30 in the morning." It checks the time makes sense, so a pickup time that has already passed gets a question back.
5. It asks how many. Passengers, cases, and anything your price list depends on, such as an estate car or a seven-seater.
6. It quotes your fare. The price comes from your own price list, and the agent asks if they'd like to book.
7. It reads the booking back. Name, pickup, destination, date, time, passengers and fare, so the caller can correct anything.
8. It saves the job and confirms. The booking goes into your system with the details your records need, and the passenger gets a text or an email.
9. It hands back what it can't do. Anything outside its job goes to the office, with a note of what was said.

None of those steps is clever. The value is that they happen at 11pm, or while your controller is on another call, in the same order.

The technical side of each step, from speech recognition to the address lookup, is in our guide to how voice AI books a taxi.

How does a phone agent quote the right fare?

A phone agent quotes the fare you set, not one it works out for itself. You give it your price list: fixed fares between zones, set prices for the airport and the stations, and the extras you charge for. The agent finds the price that matches the pickup and destination and reads it out.

Your price list has to be complete. If a route isn't on it, the agent has nothing to quote, and the right set-up hands that call to the office instead of guessing a number.

Before you switch it on, ring the agent and check its quote for each route your callers ask for most. Our guide to taxi zone pricing explains how to draw zones so the list covers your whole patch.

What does it do with regular callers and extras?

Regular callers are where a phone agent earns goodwill. An agent that recognises a caller by their number can greet them by name, so the woman who books the 7.40 to the station every Tuesday doesn't spell her street again.

Extras are the other small win. The agent can offer what you sell, such as the return journey or meet and greet at the airport. Booking the return on the same call saves a second call, and a second chance for the caller to ring somebody else.

What happens when a call is too odd for the agent?

A good phone agent knows its limits and hands the call back. Complaints, lost property, a car that hasn't turned up and anything the agent doesn't understand should reach a person, with a transcript or a note of the call.

Ask every supplier whether the agent transfers the live call or sends you the transcript afterwards, and who in the office will see it at 3am.

Under section 170 of the Equality Act 2010, a private hire operator commits an offence by refusing a booking because a disabled passenger will be travelling with an assistance dog, and by charging extra for the dog. Set the agent up so it can't refuse that booking. If you're not sure it will match the right car for a wheelchair user, send those bookings to the office. Our guide to wheelchair-accessible taxis and the Equality Act covers the rest of your duties.

How many calls can a phone agent take at once?

A phone agent can take more than one call at a time, which a person can't. At 11pm on a Friday a single controller takes one call while the next caller hears ringing or the engaged tone. The number of calls at once depends on the product, so ask each supplier to put it in writing, and ask what a caller hears once that limit is reached.

How do you put an AI phone agent on your line?

A call divert puts the agent on your line, and your number stays the same. There are three kinds of taxi call divert, and you can combine them:

How quickly a no-answer divert happens depends on your phone provider, not on the agent. On a standard BT business line, code \61\ diverts calls not answered within 15 seconds, \67\ diverts calls when the line is engaged and \21\ diverts all calls. BT sells call diversion as a paid feature, and the diverted part of each call is charged at its standard rates. On a Vodafone business mobile, an unanswered call goes to voicemail after 15 seconds as standard, and you can change the ring time before a divert. BT's Digital Voice for Business hunt groups let you forward a call nobody in the group has answered after a wait of between 5 and 30 seconds.

Every UK landline is due to move off the old analogue network by January 2027, the government says. If yours hasn't moved yet, test your diverts again after it does.

The full detail on busy lines, queues and provider differences is in our guide to taxi call overflow.

What does the law still expect from you?

Your licence duties stay with you when software takes the call. Outside London, section 56 of the Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1976 says an operator must record the particulars of every booking before the journey, in the form the council sets.

The Department for Transport's Statutory Taxi and Private Hire Vehicle Standards ask councils to require a record of the passenger's name, the time of the request, the pickup and destination, the driver and vehicle, and the staff member who took and dispatched the booking. The standards also suggest keeping booking records for at least six months. So check the record shows the phone agent took the job. Our guide to private hire operator record keeping lists the fields councils ask for.

In London, TfL requires operators to make a person available for passengers to speak to during operating hours and while a journey is under way, and asks operators to think about how they'll manage that at night and at weekends. Plan for someone to be reachable even when the agent takes the bookings.

Two more rules apply wherever you are:

• Tell callers it's automated. The ICO says that when you collect personal data from someone, you must give them privacy information at the time you collect it. Say in the greeting that it's an automated booking assistant, and say if the call is recorded.
• Keep card numbers off the call. The PCI Security Standards Council's guidance on telephone payments warns about card numbers ending up in call recordings. A payment link sent by text or email keeps them out.

What can't an AI phone agent do?

An AI phone agent can't use judgement it hasn't been given. Here's where you still need a person:

• Complaints and upsets, such as a passenger stranded at the airport at midnight.
• A driver ringing in with a problem on a job.
• Account work with its own rules: who may book on the account, and which cost code goes where.
• Places and routes you haven't priced.
• Callers it can't understand after asking twice, on a bad line or with a crowd behind them.
• Safeguarding worries. The DfT standards say an operator can outsource booking and dispatch but can't pass on the duty to protect children and vulnerable adults.

A controller who no longer types the routine airport runs has more time for exactly those calls.

How do you test an AI phone agent before you sign?

Ring it yourself, at the hours you'd use it, with the calls your office really gets:

You can ring the Dispatch AI demo line and run the same tests on it.

What happens on a call with Dispatch AI?

Dispatch AI is booking and dispatch software for taxi and private hire firms. Its AI phone agent answers your booking line when your office doesn't, quotes your own fixed prices and books the job into your Dispatch AI account. On the call it:

• recognises regular callers by their number and greets them by name
• offers the extras you sell, such as meet and greet or booking the return
• can change or cancel a booking
• hands anything it can't handle to you, with the transcript

The passenger gets a confirmation by text and email. The agent never takes card details over the phone: passengers pay by card through a secure payment link sent by email. Each phone agent takes up to 10 calls at once, and more capacity is available on a higher tier.

You put it on the calls your office can't answer, when the line rings out and overnight, or on your whole booking line if you'd rather. You choose the hours, by a call divert on your own line. See the plans and prices.