History

AC Taxi - History

AC Taxi Ltd was incorporated in January 1971. Our Company was formed from two existing companies. Allied and City.

We operated as a radio dispatched taxi cab fleet made up of many owner/operators who lent their hands in making AC Taxi Ltd. the diverse Company it is today.

The Company was dispatched from a small office on Commercial Street for many years. Watching as the little town grew. In the Summer of 2004 the Company decided that they had out grown the quaint little corner office that it had occupied for years. The decision was made to move to a larger office. This decision was motivated by the Companies decision to purchase a Brand New automated dispatch system from a growing Canadian Company called Mobile Knowledge Corp. So all of our Girls packed up their memories and moved to the larger office.

Our Fleet Gallery

June 2005

In June of 2005 Nanaimo Taxi Company AC Taxi Ltd went live with the Mobile Knowledge System. In just a few short weeks, after some growing pains, the system was up and running great. It was now time for the second stage of the Automated Dispatch. The Company installed and powered up our new ‘in car’ computers called Mobile Data Terminals.

November 2005

On November 16th 2005 the first of many MDT’s in our cars were switched on. In an instant the airwaves in AC Taxi went quiet and all that could be heard was the beeping of data going back and forth between the dispatch computer and the MDT. All were ecstatic until the eventful evening 3 days later when the telephone pole outside our office was taken out by a drunk driver; irony had played its fateful hand. With the bright lights from the transformer explosion lighting up the whole office the system went down hard. With no backup power and very little sleep, the small crew that had given this system life, had to change directions and put all of their efforts into keeping our Company running. Operators sleeping in taxis with power cords running from taxi alternators to all over the place just to keep enough power in the office for the Dispatchers to keep warm and the radio alive. It was quite a sight.

November 2006

Because of the topography of Nanaimo our Automated dispatch system had some data transmission issues in the outskirts of Nanaimo. In November of 2006 AC Taxi decided to challenge themselves again by using the GPRS (Rogers AT&T) network for better signal quality. All the MDT’s had to be sent out for upgraded modems. Since this upgrade we haven’t looked back.

March 2007

In March of 2007 AC Taxi Ltd. changed its future by selling itself as a call center to a growing taxi cab company on the Mainland. It’s hard to believe but the Company dispatches for a company over 100 kilometers away over the water into Howe Sound as well as Oceanside Taxi based in Parksville and Gabriola Taxi on Gabriola Island. Phones were diverted and MDT’s were installed. The switch was thrown and off our Dispatchers went never missing a beat.

June 2009

June 2009 AC Taxi has introduced our DEBIT CARD program. We are now proud to offer in taxi debit card transactions for no extra charge, all major credit cards and of course cash.