Getting around the Lansing area is about to change. Beginning in July,
iCab will bring the power of hailing a cab into the hands of anyone with a smartphone and someplace to go.
“I was talking with my father,” says Valentino Hernandez, whose father John Hernandez has owned
Grand Limousine in Lansing for 25 years. “I said, ‘I think this city needs something more unique for taxi services. Not in the vehicle sense, but so customers can interact with drivers through smartphones or texting. I started doing some research and started working on app development.”
Instead of calling a taxi service and waiting for an hour or more for a car to arrive with little to no information, as taxi users often do now, iCab will allow customers to be connected to a taxi via GPS as soon as they hail it. They can pick the cab that is closest or with their favorite driver, and watch as the cab moves toward them.
“It’s a virtual hail,” Hernandez says. “The driver will know exactly where that phone is. If the client doesn’t know the address of where they’re at, or if they go from one location to the next, it will keep them live. If it’s raining and want to run inside and grab a coffee at Biggby, they can just go.”
The iCab Grand Opening will take place a Reno’s East this Friday and Saturday. Hernandez will launch iCab with four cabs and 15 employees. His goal is to grow the fleet to 10 vehicles in 18 months.
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