Facts and Figures:

Not yet implemented coming soon

Taxi and limousine service industry {2005 and 2006}

The taxi and limousine services industry in Canada generated operating revenue of $1.8 billion in 2006, up 7% compared with 2005. When combined with lower growth in operating expenses, the industry's operating margin (operating revenue less operating expenses) rose 21% compared with an average increase of only 1% from 2002 to 2005.

Most of this increase accrued to the unincorporated segment of the industry, which consists mainly of self-employed drivers. With this increase, the average operating margin per business (or per person, in the case of a self-employed driver) rose to $6,500 in 2006 compared with $5,800 a year earlier.

The unincorporated segment of the industry, which had 39,000 establishments, generated $1.1 billion in operating revenue in 2006. Operating revenue increased only 3% from 2005 but stable operating expenses enabled the strong growth in the operating margin.

Associations and companies, the incorporated segment of the industry, represented 1,700 establishments across Canada and accounted for $628 million in operating revenue in 2006.

Note: Along with the 2005 and 2006 data, revisions back to the reference year 2002 have also been released by Statistics Canada. The data from 2002 to 2006 are now estimated solely using tax returns from incorporated and unincorporated businesses in place of the survey that was conducted in 2002 and 2005.

Did You Know?

1. The total number of calls for taxi service in Canada throughout 2005:  1.13 Billion
2. By comparison, according to the GAO the number of US taxi calls for 2005 was 1,887,901,456 !
3. As of May 2008, 310-TAXI Canada is currently processing an average of 60,000 calls per month.
4. 52% of all calls to 310-TAXI are from Ontario and Quebec
5. 18% of all calls to 310-TAXI are from Alberta and British Columbia
6. The remaining 30% of 310-TAXI calls originate from Saskatchewan, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, Nunavut and the Yukon - in that order.
7. Average call length on the 310-TAXI service is less than 27 seconds
8. The longest call ever recorded on the 310-TAXI service lasted 187 minutes.  It involved a mother giving birth.
9. 310-TAXI has had legitimate inquiries from interested taxi companies from the United States and Great Britain
10. Almost 2.5% of all calls on the 310-TAXI network originate from USA based cell phones
11. USA customers from Florida, Maine, Minnesota, Georgia, Alaska, North Carolina & Connecticut + more
12. Primary user group for 310-TAXI service:             Government
13. Secondary user group for 310-TAXI service:         Post Secondary
14. Tertiary user group for 310-TAXI service:             Seniors & Retired Persons
15. Seasonality curve:  High Volumes = October - April       Low Volumes = May - September
16. As noted above by Statistics Canada, operating margins grew by 21% in 2006
17. In 2007 & 2008 no major taxi companies (25 + cars) closed their doors or ceased operations
18. For the 1st and 2nd quarters of 2008 taxi companies saw an increase in calls of between 12-15%
19. For the 3rd quarter of 2008, taxi companies saw a net decrease of 22-26% in the number of calls
20. For the 4th quarter of 2008, taxi companies saw an increase of 20% over the same period in 2007
21. As of December 31, 2008 the 310-TAXI web site as had 1,000,108 unique visits from virtually all corners of the globe

According to the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association:

1. As of November 2008, 72% of Canadian households had access to a wireless phone - up 64% in 2006
2. A recent survey showed 69% of households had access to two or more cell phones
3. Canadians send 63.7 million text messages every day
4. Each year, Canadians place more than 6 million calls to 911 or emergency numbers from mobile phones
5. Wireless revenues in Canada totaled $12.5 billion in 2007
6. Half of all phone connections in Canada are now wireless
7. More than 25,000 Canadians work in or for the wireless industry
8. In 2002 there were approximately 1 billion cell phone users world wide
9. By the end of 2008, there were approximately 4.1 billion cell phone subscriptions world wide
10. Every 6 out of 10 persons around the world have a cell phone subscription

Oklahoma, Utah lead States in going cell-only ~

MIKE MOKRZYCKI

Associated Press

March 11, 2009 at 1:20 PM EDT

Trendy California isn't a trendsetter when it comes to relying on cell phones. And while the 1987 movie Wall Street helped introduce the then-brick-sized mobile phone to popular culture, New York and other Northeast states lag in dropping land lines. Surprisingly, Oklahoma and Utah lead in going wireless, according to federal estimates released Wednesday.

At least 26 per cent of households are now cell-only in Oklahoma and Utah, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated. That rate was at least 20 per cent in nine other states — Nebraska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, New Mexico, Texas, South Carolina and Tennessee — and the District of Columbia.

The study is sure to be watched closely by telecommunications companies trying to understand state and local markets better, and by government, academic and commercial survey researchers using telephone polling to monitor health trends, politics and much more.

The CDC, blending its own 2007 survey data with Census updates, found the prevalence of cell-only households varies widely by state — sometimes within regions and even between neighboring states. This is tied to differences by state in demographics known to predict wireless-only ownership, especially being young and renting rather than owning a home.

States with the fewest cell-only households: Vermont (5 per cent) and Connecticut, Delaware and South Dakota (6 per cent each). South Dakota was near the bottom even though next-door Nebraska was near the top. Also below 10 per cent: Rhode Island, New Jersey, Hawaii, California (9 per cent), Montana, Massachusetts and Missouri.

In New York — where Michael Douglas as corporate raider Gordon Gekko roamed lower Manhattan barking orders on a huge early cell phone in Wall Street — 11 per cent of households were cell-only.

The study also estimated how many adults only have cell phones. Those estimates mostly came within a point or two of the household numbers.

The study's lead author, Stephen Blumberg, senior scientist at the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, noted the data are from 2007 and all signs indicate people keep substituting cell phones for land lines at a steady pace.

“We would expect that today in 2009 the prevalence rates in every state have increased, perhaps by 5 percentage points or more. What we don't know is whether the rate of growth is the same in every state,” Mr. Blumberg said in an interview.

By asking about telephone usage in its monthly in-person health surveys, Mr. Blumberg's agency is the only source for data on prevalence of cell phone-only households. It estimates more than one in six American homes — 17.5 per cent — had only wireless phones as of a year ago.

The health survey doesn't have enough interviews to produce reliable state-level estimates in most states, so Mr. Blumberg's team looked to the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, with large state samples. The researchers compared CPS data on demographic groups known to be associated with cell phone usage and adjusted the CDC state estimates to conform.

U.S. telephone surveys, especially on the state level, typically sample only land line phones. There's growing evidence from the 2008 election that excluding cell phones could hurt poll accuracy. Mr. Blumberg noted that in health surveys omitting cell-only respondents could, among other things, underestimate the number of smokers and binge drinkers — and, paradoxically, those who exercise regularly.

What we can take away from all this, is that the traditional land line that we all grew up with in our homes is starting to go the way of the dinosaur.  People across North America are giving up their land line service in favor of the convenience and portability of the cell phone.  It will be interesting to watch the rate of conversion increase as we near the end of the decade.  ed

WWW www.310taxi.com