easyTaxi COVID Policy
Our vision statement for the business is about our commitment to change and to continuously improve the customer experience. As a business, we are continuously evolving to ensure the needs of our customers are met. Who would have thought one of the needs was to protect us all from COVID!
As COVID evolved and the implications became clear our vision has really helped us respond, plan and manage the events of COVID ensuring that our main concern is the safety of our staff, customers, and drivers.
easyTaxi provides an invaluable service transporting critical key workers, key worker children, vulnerable children and others who need to make essential journeys. Our COVID policy is to ensure this service can be provided and maintained whilst staying safe.
Our service is driven by you and we are making every effort to keep you safe if you choose to travel with us.
Our COVID Response
We set up a COVID response team to assess the COVID impact on our community. To establish a plan to ensured continued service to our customers and drivers whilst adhering to all safety advice and Government guidelines.
At easyTaxi we already have policies in place to deal with business continuity. We implemented our business continuity plan to ensure a continued service and availability of our critical systems. Our systems are cloud based with back up servers in the event of a large-scale outage.
With the use of existing technology, we moved our operational staff to home working. Thus, ensuring all employees can productively, safely, and securely work from home.
We have increased the number of Hackney vehicles on the fleet which have partitions to keep both customer and driver safe. We are supporting drivers with standard vehicles with the installation of temporary partitions.
We are encouraging customers to pay by Card through our APP, reducing the need for contact.
Drivers have been issued with KN95 Medical Grade Facemasks to help them stay safe. With advice to use them properly – wash hands before putting them on and taking them off.
We are restricting the number of customers in vehicles in line with Government policies.
We have established a driver taskforce to support drivers through this difficult and uncertain time. Providing support and information to all drivers either working, taking time out or isolating.
Where our offices are open, we have increased the routine cleaning of high-touch, hard surface areas.
From 1st January 2021, we are advising that all passengers wear a face covering whilst using our transport. Private hire does not fall under the public transport category, but we want to support Government policy and ensure we are doing our upmost to protect drivers and customers.
We continually assess our operations and service to ensure we are meeting the needs of our drivers and customers in line with Government guidelines. Many lessons will be learned by all of us and we will use these to drive improvement.
Education of our staff, education of our drivers, education of our customers. Education has been a fundamental part of our COVID response through marketing and our training department. Ensuring that we keep our community informed.
This includes daily updates to drivers regarding COVID safety practices designed to keep the driver and customers safe.
Drivers:
Follow all Government and NHS guidelines.
If vulnerable either due to age, suppressed immunity or underlying health condition, please consider whether it is safe to work.
If a driver believes they may have been exposed to the virus through a passenger (or other means), please follow the official advice to self-isolate especially if displaying symptoms.
Drivers to clean vehicles after each journey with wipes – minimum 60% alcohol or other bleach-based cleaning product. Concentrating on touch points (such as steering wheel, door handles both inside and outside etc)
Dispose of cleaning and waste disposal using guidance from Public Health England to limit coronavirus transmission
Regularly clean the inside of vehicle with warm water and soap
Where possible and practical, to wash hands regularly. Where not possible to use hand sanitising gel – minimum 60% alcohol.
Wearing a face covering is optional and is not required by the law. If workers choose to wear one, it is important to use face coverings properly and we provide training to do so.
