Questions about CDS

CDS (Cab Dispatch System) is a cloud booking and dispatch system for UK minicab and private hire offices. Staff take phone bookings priced by fixed fares or mileage rates, send drivers from a live dispatch board and text passengers in the office’s own words. Customers can also book on the office’s website, and the office side is there too: accounts and invoices, driver pay, TfL PCO returns and analytics.

No. You sign in at app.cabdispatchsystem.com in a modern web browser on Windows, Mac or a tablet. There is no server in your office, and updates arrive without you doing anything.

Get in touch through the form, by email or on WhatsApp and we’ll show you CDS on a call. We then create your office and run a 30-minute screen-share to connect your SMS and email. After that you add your drivers, vehicles, places and prices, and there are how-to videos for every step.

There is one plan with every feature, priced by the number of drivers in your office. Tell us your fleet size and we’ll send a quote. Your SMS provider bills you for texts directly.

Offices are set up with us rather than by signing up online. Book a demo and we’ll show you CDS working before you decide.

When you assign a job, CDS texts the driver the pickup, drop-off, passenger, luggage, child seats, flight number and fare. They are texted again if the job changes or you take it back. The cloud driver app is on its way; offices on CDS Desktop can use the CDS Driver app for Android and iPhone.

Until the cloud driver app is live, the driver map shows where drivers are heading, worked out from their jobs, for example on the way to a pickup. It doesn’t use live GPS yet.

Yes. Add your airports, stations and other places, then set prices to full postcodes, sectors, districts or whole areas, one by one or in the fare grid. Anything without a fixed fare is priced by your mileage rates.

Yes, with an extra SIP extension on each phone line, from providers such as Soho66, Onsim or Virgin Media O2 Business. The pop-up shows the line, the number and whether the caller is a returning customer. Microsoft Teams Phone isn’t supported.

Yes. Each office gets a booking page with its own name, logo and colours, which you can link to or add to your website. Customers confirm their UK mobile with a texted code, and bookings arrive on your board marked Web.

Not yet. Customers pay the driver by cash or card, or the trip goes on their company account and you invoice it.

SMS Gateway for Android (a free app that sends texts from your own Android phone and SIM), SMS8, The SMS Works or Twilio. You keep the account and pay the provider directly.

Yes, through Gmail, Microsoft 365, Brevo, Amazon SES or another SMTP account. Replies come back to your office. Outlook.com and Hotmail addresses can’t be used to send.

CDS builds the two CSV files TfL asks London operators for every Monday, from the drivers and vehicles that worked that week, in TfL’s own layout. TfL has no way for software to upload them, so you upload the files on the TfL portal yourself.

Yes. Account customers can have their own prices, and you invoice their trips for a period with VAT. Invoices are numbered with no gaps, can be printed, and go from draft to issued to paid.

The cloud system runs in your browser, with no server in your office to look after. Get in touch and we’ll talk you through moving your office over. The CDS Driver app for CDS Desktop is still on Google Play and the App Store.