Kabbee - book a taxi with your smartphone [App of the week]

What is Kabbee?

There are lots of apps out there for finding the number of a local cab company, but often these are little more than directory services. Kabbee works as a price comparison tool for minicabs, giving you the estimated time of arrival as well as a user rating for each company.

Rather than having to call a company, you can enter your journey details and book and pay for a cab journey all from the app.

Kabbee is availble free on Android and iPhone, with a BlackBerry version expected this year.

Read our app reviews for a look at some of the best apps available.

5 reasons to try Kabbee

You know you’re getting a good price
By contacting up to 60 mini-cab services, the app offers you a range of prices so you know which ones are competitive
The taxi companies are vetted and rated by other customers
All drivers are licensed and the companies have been put through a 30-point accreditation scheme. Plus you can submit user ratings for each company and this shows up as a star rating when picking a company to book from.
You can pay for the taxi through the app
As well as being able to pay for a taxi through the app using a credit card, you can also load an account with money to use later. So, you could load an older child’s account with money to be used for taxi journeys. You can also choose to pay by cash, so there’s no need to use a credit card.
Saves regular journeys
If you are often making the same journey this is saved on the app, so next time you’re working late and need a cab home you can order it even quicker.
It’s being extended throughout the UK
While at the moment the app is limited to minicab firms in London, there are plans to extend it throughout the UK – as well as adding Black Cabs in London.

Tim’s impressions of Kabbee

As well as making the process of booking a taxi quick and easy, the app also adds the price comparison element, which – unless you make a lot of calls to different companies – you wouldn’t be able to do without the app. For me, this is where it really becomes useful, and playing around with the app showed that some companies were charging as much as 50% more than their rivals.

The app itself is slick and simple, just focusing on the things it needs to do and not over-complicating matters and making the app cluttered.

You choose how many people you needm so extra-large cars can be ordered, plus you can also add requirements for suitcases and child car seats (although journeys with child car seats need to be booked 3 hours in advance).

Popular locations such as train stations and airport terminals are on hand to make picking your destination quick, and location services are used to help choose a nearby pick-up point.

Quotes are clearly shown and can be sorted according to pick-up time, price or rating for the taxi company.

Finally, if you refer a friend to the service and they book a car through the app you both get £5 added to your account.

While it doesn’t have the real-time tracking of nearby taxis found in the rival Hailo app, it does work with a range of companies so you are able to compare prices and that’s the part that really appeals to me.