Vinka helps Menevä taxis to beat the odds and succeed in Lapland

Menevä – the fastest growing taxi company in Finland – broke the news in a very positive fashion with the launch of their latest health care transportation operation in the middle of the freezing winter of Finnish Lapland. In YLE (the Finnish national broadcasting company) news (Finnish only) the focus is on the somewhat unexpected success of Menevä in Lapland.

In order to win the operation, Menevä offered a lower price and reduced the fleet size by 100 vehicles while promising a more optimised operation to the remaining drivers with shorter waiting times and less dead mileage. The move was widely criticised by the local taxis but now, after a month and a half of operation, Menevä gets praising both from the customers and the drivers. According to the YLE news the driver quotes are very positive:

The service works even though Menevä dropped fleet size significantly.

Drivers get very little dead mileage.

Drivers are getting paid well despite the lower price per km.

Service is working better and is more flexible than with the previous operator.

Menevä’s secret sauce is Vinka’s optimised dispatch. In Lapland the operational landscape is exceptionally difficult: rides can be long – up to 450 km – but at the same time there are local and very short rides.

The challenge is to make sure no-one needs to go home empty handed because one empty return can ruin the whole day’s earnings for the driver.

The dispatch automation model used in Lapland is very different to that used in Helsinki metropolitan area but with Vinka’s ground breaking dispatch platform the two can reside side by side.

For more information about Vinka’s optimised dispatch: info@vinka.fi

Menevä is a Helsinki based taxi company expanding rapidly around Finland. Menevä has currently more than 1000 taxis from Helsinki to Lapland. Menevä is also well known for its efforts to advance equality: all Menevä taxis are discrimination free zones.