Ahead of Its Time: Building a Geocoded Minicab Network in 2004

In 2004, I founded Minicabanywhere.com, a location-based minicab dispatch concept built on geospatial intelligence.

The idea did not start in a boardroom.
It started with observation.

A friend of mine was running a minicab business in Elephant and Castle. By watching the daily operations, the phone calls, address confusion, dispatch delays, and inefficiencies, I began to see a pattern. I realised that the real problem was not the drivers. It was the lack of spatial precision.

At the time, smartphones did not exist in the way we know them today. App-based ride-hailing was unheard of. Yet I believed technology could remove friction from the system.

Using MapInfo Professional, UPRN (Unique Property Reference Numbers), and advanced geocoding techniques, I mapped every identifiable property within Southwark Council.

The model allowed:
• Every property to be digitally identified at the touch of a button
• A central 0800 number for passengers
• Any registered minicab within the scheme to respond
• Faster, more accurate pickups
• Reduced address confusion
• Greater operational efficiency.

Years later, companies like Uber and Bolt would popularise app-based ride-hailing. But in 2004, integrating geocoded property data with transport dispatch was still uncommon.

Unfortunately, the financial resources required to fully develop, scale and capitalise on the idea did not materialise. The vision was strong, the funding was not.

But I have learned something important:
Not every idea is meant to become a global company. Some ideas are milestones. They reveal how you think.

Looking back, that project reflected my instinct for systems thinking, mapping space, understanding movement, and designing efficiency.

Years later, I would begin painting landscapes, mapping emotional space instead of physical coordinates.

Innovation, I have discovered, is not confined to one chapter of life.