Case Study: How Trident Taxis Migrated From Cordic to Taxi Web Design in 10 Days

In April 2026, Trident Taxis — a 42-vehicle private hire fleet operating in the South East of England — completed a full migration from Cordic to Taxi Web Design in 10 working days. Zero bookings lost. Zero passenger complaints. £6,000 in monthly software savings, locked in from day 11. This is the unedited case study, including timeline, data, dispatcher quotes, and the 90-day operational results.

If you're researching a Cordic alternative in 2026, this is the most detailed real-world reference we can publish.

Background: The Trident Taxis Fleet

Trident Taxis runs 42 private hire vehicles across two licensed council areas, with a mix of saloon, MPV, and executive segments. They handle approximately 4,600 jobs per week — 60% phone bookings, 38% app, 2% web. Their corporate book includes three regional NHS contracts and an account with a national hotel chain.

They had been on Cordic for 9 years. The platform worked, but three pressures forced the review in Q1 2026:

• Monthly Cordic invoice had risen 38% over 4 years to £8,200/month all-in.
• The passenger app was scoring 3.4 stars on the App Store — costing them new-user installs.
• Dispatcher onboarding took 6 weeks on Cordic; their last two hires both quit in week 4.

Why They Chose Taxi Web Design

Trident shortlisted four platforms: Taxi Web Design, iCabbi, Autocab, and Cabcher. Taxi Web Design won on four criteria:

• One-time pricing at £8,500 enterprise vs continuing recurring contracts elsewhere.
• Free migration from Cordic, with a written 10-day plan signed off before contract.
• Modern dispatcher interface that test dispatchers learned in 2 hours, not 2 weeks.
• White-label apps rebuilt with their existing brand, including their existing app icon and colour scheme.

Day 0: Kickoff and Scope Lock

The migration project started with a 2-hour kickoff call. The Trident team committed to a hard go-live date 10 working days out. We agreed migration scope: customers (last 36 months), drivers, vehicles, future reservations, recurring bookings, three corporate accounts, rate matrices, and the existing payment processor relationship. Anything outside that scope — historical jobs older than 36 months, archived drivers — would be export-only and stored offline.

Days 1–3: Data Export and Platform Configuration

On day 1, Trident's senior dispatcher pulled CSV exports from Cordic for customers (12,400 records), drivers (54), vehicles (42), and future reservations (1,847). Our migration team started production-instance configuration in parallel: branding, council compliance settings, payment processor handover (Stripe), and email/SMS template recreation.

By end of day 3, we had a fully branded Trident Taxis instance running on Taxi Web Design with the imported dataset in a sandbox. Validation confirmed customer count matched Cordic to the row, and 50 spot-checked records were 100% accurate.

Days 4–6: Sandbox Testing and Dispatcher Training

Three Trident dispatchers spent two days in the sandbox running every workflow they perform on Cordic: assign job, edit job, dispatch driver, no-show, refund, batch invoice, corporate report. Average workflow click count on Taxi Web Design was 22% lower than Cordic. The senior dispatcher said: "It's the first dispatch console I've used since 2015 that doesn't feel like Windows XP."

We rebuilt the existing Trident-branded passenger app on iOS and Android, submitted to both stores on day 5, and got approval back on day 6 (Apple) and day 5 (Google). The driver app was deployed via TestFlight to all 54 drivers on day 5 for sandbox testing.

Day 7: Parallel-Run Begins

At 6:00 AM on day 7, Trident's website booking widget was swapped to the new platform. From that moment, every new booking landed in Taxi Web Design. Cordic continued to handle the 1,847 pre-existing future reservations and any phone bookings made by callers reaching the legacy phone number (which we kept active during parallel-run).

Dispatchers used a printed cheat sheet: "Booking made before 6 AM today? Cordic. Booking made after? Taxi Web Design." Not a single booking was misrouted in the 72-hour parallel-run window.

Days 8–9: Live Operations Under Both Platforms

Both platforms ran live for two more days. We monitored every job hourly. The new platform processed 1,920 new jobs across 48 hours with zero technical incidents. Cordic processed the residual 540 pre-existing reservations as scheduled.

The customer comms wave went out on day 8: an email to the top 100 corporate contacts, an in-app notice on the old Cordic-powered passenger app pointing to the new app, and an SMS to the top 1,000 retail customers. Within 48 hours, 71% of active app users had reinstalled the new app.

Day 10: Cutover and Cordic Notice

At 11:59 PM on day 10, the legacy Cordic phone number was forwarded to Taxi Web Design's number. The website booking widget had been switched 72 hours earlier. All new bookings — phone, app, web — flowed through Taxi Web Design exclusively. The 30-day Cordic cancellation notice was sent in writing the same evening. Cordic stayed in read-only mode for the notice period as a fallback.

The 10-Day Timeline at a Glance

90 Days Later: The Operational Results

Ninety days after cutover, Trident shared their numbers. We've reproduced them here exactly as reported, with permission:

• App bookings: Up from 38% to 52% of total volume (+14 points). The new passenger app is meaningfully better — passengers are using it.
• Passenger app rating: Up from 3.4 to 4.6 stars on iOS, 3.5 to 4.5 stars on Android.
• Dispatcher errors: Down 31% (measured by manual reassignments per shift).
• Driver acceptance time: Down from 14 seconds average to 6 seconds — drivers respond faster on the new app.
• Software cost: £8,200/month → £0/month recurring (one-time enterprise paid back in 11 months at £6,000/month savings net of small hosting costs).
• Dispatcher onboarding: New hire in week 8 was fully productive in 9 days vs the previous 6 weeks on Cordic.

Quotes From the Trident Team

"We were dreading the migration. We assumed we'd lose at least a few corporate jobs and have a fortnight of unhappy passengers. We lost zero. The parallel-run approach was the difference. By day 11 we were just running the business again."
— Operations Manager, Trident Taxis

"The dispatcher console is the biggest single quality-of-life upgrade I've had in 12 years on this team. Half my old workflow steps have just vanished."
— Senior Dispatcher, Trident Taxis

What This Means for Other Cordic Operators

Trident is a representative UK private hire fleet. If you're between 20–100 vehicles on Cordic, this migration is realistic for you on a similar timeline. The success factors are well-known: a vendor that runs the migration for you, a proper parallel-run plan, hard scope lock, and clear customer comms. None of that is rocket science — it just has to actually happen.

If you'd like a written migration plan tailored to your fleet, we'll produce one within 48 hours of a 30-minute scoping call. See our full Cordic alternative guide for the detailed feature comparison, and the switching guide for the master playbook covering every dispatch platform we migrate from.

Related reading: Cordic Alternative · Switching Guide · Case Studies · iCabbi Alternative for UK Operators.