ONE OF the fun stories of the day is the chaos that struck at Blacktop and Yellow Cabs when they adopted a computerized dispatch system. The two companies recently climbed into a deal together to purchase some- thing called an MDI dispatch system, based on a system used in Calgary. Just about everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. The system is linked together by radio signals. Unfortunately, the signals “go banging around be- tween the buildings with weird frequency,’ as one technical person put it, making communications between the central com- puter and the taxis themselves quite a bit less than perfect. Get this: they have eliminated the radiophones that used to link the drivers to dispatch. Instead, the computer reads out the next address a driver should attend, based on a computer analysis of where the nearest taxi is when a call comes in. If the poor driver gets to a place and there’s no one there, he has to find a pay phone to call back to the | dispatch office. As you can imagine, he might not get through right away. Meanwhile, after a fixed period of time, if there is no report of the caller be- ing picked up, the com- puter will send ANOTHER taxi. In this way, if someone gives up and walks away or takes a bus or whatever, the computer continues to send taxis out. Each driver, by the way, passes several people trying to flag him down aiong the way, losing | bucks. Smoking believed to be cause of fire SMOKING in bed is likely the cause of an apartment fire Sunday. City of North Vancouver firefighters attended a fire at 215 St. Andrews just before 8:30 Sunday morning. Firefighters were called by the manager of the building who smelled smoke. Firefighters found the oc- cupant of the suite, a woman, still inside her suite upon arrival. After extin- guishing the fire, firemen determined the only damage was to the bed. An official of the city’s fire department warned that during the holiday season all smokers should take extra caution in avoiding smoking in bed. Incredibly, the com- puterized dispatch system is set up on one channel. In Vancouver, taxis have always used two channels — one for the West Side, one for the East. As they zig-zag back and forth across the boundary, the drivers switch channels. The computer didn’t do this. It couldn't. So a lot of messages simply didn’t get through. Taxis limped blindly from zone to zone. One more astounding snag: the computer has the city directory stored in its memory banks, but if someone asks for a taxi to come to a certain avenue, when properly they mean a Street, or vice versa, the computer rejects the in- formation. It doesn’t know how to guess (or ask) what the customer really means. Operators have to force new information into its memory. In the old days, a peg board was used, you see, so a dispatcher could tell at a glance how his fleet was deployed. Now, in effect, the computer does it by Dead Reckoning. Richard Hughes of Sun- shine Cabs says that he has studied the system being used by Blacktop and Yellow and he is a *‘believer’’ in the technology. ‘tit should work — but it doesn’t,’’ he notes. He has absolutely no plans for such a system for the North Shore. | thanked him warmly. I called Blacktop. The first three times 1 dialed, the line was busy. Finally, the call went through. A GRANNY SMITH APPLES Bob Hunter © strictly personal e 125's taped voice came on ard said: “Hello. You have reached taxi dispatch. Please hold the line. Your call will be iiandled short- ly.’ Music started. After 2:09 minutes, a harassed female voice, un- taped, came on. I explain- ed that | was trying to get hold of her boss to inter- view him. The best she could do was leave a message. Fair enough. I told her my name and gave her my phone number. There was a long pause. I asked if she was still there. ‘““This bloody com- puter,’’ she muttered wearily. ‘‘It's not accep- ting.” I had to repeat my name three times before she managed to load it into the machine. For a message, she managed to get in the words: WANTS TALK. Politely, 1 asked if she could handle putting my | phone number in there as well. It would be crue! to ask if there was a pad of paper or a pencil around. So I waited. After another long silence, she asked: “What was that number | again?"’ | told her. More silence. The tension was unbearable. Finally, she heaved a sign of relief and I heard a little beep in the background. “It’s in,’’ she whispered in triumph. I thanked her profusely. We were two human beings who had struggled together at a lonely interface in a mod- em communications grid. At Yellow Cabs, 1 was assured by a spokesman that there are ‘‘absolutely no problems that haven't been solved.” Good to hear. 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