City law firm Fox Williams LLP advised Trapeze Group on its acquisition of the assets of Auriga Communication Systems from Tait Europe Limited. Tait Europe is a subsidiary of the Tait Radio Communications Group of New Zealand. The acquisition adds Auriga’s market leading taxi and private hire management software solutions, known as the Evocab family of products, to the Trapeze enterprise solution portfolio.
Evocab is a next generation data dispatch system designed to meet the unique needs of taxi and private hire companies. A comprehensive solution, Evocab is used by back-office personnel to book and assign trips, by drivers in the vehicle to manage their trips, and by passengers to book their own taxis on demand via text, the Web or Interactive Voice Response (IVR).
Peter Bell, Managing Director, Trapeze UK, commented: “We are very excited by the acquisition of Auriga. It forms a key part of our strategy to expand our transport software offering in the UK beyond the bus and local authority market. Given the interaction of taxi operations with social and educational transport in the local authority market, this is an obvious next step for us”.
Auriga also brings to Trapeze a team of technology professionals with more than two decades of industry experience in taxi dispatch management systems. The team has installed over 250 of Auriga’s intelligent dispatch systems worldwide and approximately 30,000 Auriga in-vehicle units that are in use every day.
Fox Williams partner Richie Clark commented: “Fox Williams was delighted to be part of a transaction which will strengthen Trapeze’s existing commitment to providing long-term value to their own people and their customers”.
Corporate partner Richie Clark led the Fox Williams team assisted by Sharon O’Donnell and partners Liz Ruff in real estate and Jo Owers in employment. Hewitsons LLP advised Auriga Communications Systems.
