Taxi company River City Cabs of Whanganui apologises to public, asks for patience

Rhondda Anderson has been frustrated with her company's move to a call centre in Palmerston North and the communications problems that ensued.

In the middle of winter last year a driver from Whanganui's River City Cabs took an elderly woman from the hospital to her home.

When he got her home he asked for her keys so he could unlock the house and turn the lights on for her.

"When he went to turn the lights on, she had no light bulbs," said River City Cabs owner and operator Rhondda Anderson. "Nothing was working."

"He kept her in the car. He went and purchased the light bulbs himself, went back to the house and installed the light bulbs. He got her safely in the house.

"The next morning he got hold of the fire brigade and asked them to go and install a fire alarm for this elderly lady. Obviously she had no family or anyone to do these things for her.

"Those are the kinds of things our drivers do behind the scenes nobody would ever know about."

Yet Whanganui's only major taxi company, River City Cabs, had fallen on tough times.

Last month it outsourced its calls from its office on Hardy St to a call centre in Palmerston North.

There have been a several failures as a result with outcry online of people not being picked up or being stuck on the phone for too long.

"For what's going on we feel really bad for the community because it's not the standard of service we're used to supplying," Anderson said.

"We are doing our utmost best to get this back on a level footing."

The decision to move calls to the Palmerston North call centre was one she and husband and business partner Bob Anderson agonised over for months.

They made the move in June and it meant four fulltime call staff and one part-timer were made redundant.

"It was a big decision to go this way. We toyed with it for months and months before we made this decision. We watched it for four or five years ... they'd [the Palmerston North call centre] asked us to go there but we said no until now."

The Andersons were getting older and wanted to step back from the company rather than work long hours, including being on call if there were issues.

Their hope was the call centre would allow them to take more time away from the office.

Anderson said she was still in discussions with the Palmerston North call centre about the difficulties they were having and believed the issues related to the phone system.

"If it doesn't settle down we're looking at other alternatives."

She was aware of the important role her company played in the community.

"Taxis are very much needed in Whanganui. Our basis of our day customers are our elderly who have no other way of getting around.

"Yes there are other forms of transport for them but financially taxis are the more viable and affordable form of transport."

The company was surviving financially, Anderson said, but it was only a modest profit.

"We don't make a lot of money, we make enough to survive.

"Our rates - we keep them viable for this town. We don't charge extras. If you go to other towns you'll find ... extras for carrying a bike, extras for carrying a pram, extras for going to and from the airport.

"We don't charge any of that. We live in Whanganui. Whanganui cannot sustain costs like that. We keep our costs as basic as we can."