Pioneer in Nordic taxi technology

Pioneer in Nordic taxi technology

As the developer of the taximeter system with associated booking & dispatch tools, Frogne has played a central role in Nordic taxi and passenger transport for 50 years. Here are eight important events from Frogne's 50 years in Nordic passenger traffic:
 

Pioneer in technical platforms

When the thirty-year-old engineer Finn Frogne founded the company, which still bears his name, in 1973, the basic philosophy was to develop systems that could "talk" to each other, i.e. that the taxis could communicate with a stationary switchboard. In 1986, Finn Frogne himself installed Europe's first integrated taxi meter and central system at Aalborg Taxi in Denmark. Since then, Frogne's business concept has been based on developing commercial solutions via system integration.

Taxi solutions for Nordic welfare

The Nordic welfare economies offer an extensive network of social and health transport services for children, the elderly and citizens with special needs. Almost all taxi companies in the Nordics operate publicly paid trips, and for some the share of public trips constitutes 70 percent of turnover. Since the 1980s, Frogne has developed system solutions for Nordic taxi companies that manage the unique Nordic mix of private and street travel, of business and account driving, as well as individually adapted transport for medical travel.

The worlds first sustainable taxi technology

From 2016 to 2019, Frogne led the world's first development project aimed at a green transition in the taxi industry. The project was initiated by the Danish Transport Agency and through technology, driver motivation and training, the project focused on a significant, sustained and documentable reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. The data basis was 170 million kilometers of driving, 170 cars and 400 drivers at Esbjerg Taxi, Herning Taxi and Dantaxi Viborg. Today, GrønTaxi is part of Frogne's Business Intelligence solutions, which calculate, for example, probabilities for the next trip based on historical and dynamic traffic data.

Groundbreaking GPS navigation

Today, GPS-based navigation is an everyday concept that we hardly think about. But before Google, the idea of connecting satellite signals with taxi centers and moving vehicles was a distant dream of the future. However, not for Frogne's navigation team at the time, who in 1992 in Munich were the first in Europe to present GPS signals live in taxis. Today, Frogne offers GPS solutions with maps that are adapted to Nordic taxis' specific requirements for community-paid trips, zoning, price areas, tunnels, sparsely populated areas etc.

Experts on Nordic taxi conditions

In 1988, the management of Helsingborg Taxi saw an article in the Swedish Taxiidag magazine about a Danish company that developed taxi meters and dispatch services for taxis. After a visit to Denmark, Helsingborg Taxi became Frogne's first Swedish customer. Since the deregulation of the Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish and Danish taxi markets, Frogne has built long customer relationships with both large and small Nordic taxi companies. This has taken place, among other things, through the subsidiary Nordic Auto El and the alliance with Structab/MegTax. Today, Frogne fills a number of positions of trust in several national taxi organizations, including the EU Welmec and MID organizations, which are responsible for European taximeter standards.

The best and the brightest

Continuity and competence have characterized Frogne for 50 years. Today, the family-owned Frogne is run by the second generation after the founder Finn Frogne, namely the son Kaare Frogne. From the 1990s onwards, when the company consolidated its position as perhaps the Nordic region's leading developer of taxi technology, wife and mother Britta also participated in the company's management. The importance of being able to retain and develop long-term specialist competence and industry experience is, in Kaare Frogne's own words, "an invaluable asset and an explanation for the long customer relationships".

Experts in extreme Nordic conditions

It is no coincidence that car and tire manufacturers from all over the world

comes to the Nordics to test how new tire models perform in the Nordic winter road conditions. Frogne's taximeter products are not only approved according to European MID and Welmec regulations, they are also known for their performance and stability under extreme weather conditions and temperature fluctuations. Regardless of whether the taxi is north of the Arctic Circle or in windy and rainy Denmark, the taximeter works with the same world-class stability.

SUTI - A visionary mobility initiative

In 2002, Frogne was one of the founders of the non-profit organization SUTI (Standardized Exchange of Traffic Information) whose purpose is to develop technical standards for all actors in call-controlled traffic. Via the so-called SUTI link, different technical systems and platforms can exchange operational information about, for example, the individual citizen's transport needs, such as ensuring that the same driver drives an autistic child to and from care. The SUTI initiative can be seen as a visionary initiative that has anticipated our time's need for connected mobility and API technology. Currently, more than 30,000 passenger transports in the Nordics are carried out every day via SUTI links.

Engineering AI into TAXI

Developing and applying IT-solutions that will improve customer service and optimize resources and profitability for our mobility customers has always been a Frogne core business philosophy. This quest continues with unchanged speed and dedication. Latest addition is the The Frogne Voicebot which uses advanced AI to fully automatically answer calls and create bookings into the Frogne dispatch system thereby ensuring fast and accurate customer service also at peak hours and during busy periods.

Furthermore, as an early adopter of quantum computing Frogne is laying the foundation for continuous improvement in optimization of the entire Frogne System solutions. Adopting Quantum Computing with simultaneous implementation of AI, Frogne will in the years to come excel in providing taxi companies with both faster and smarter calculations in terms of optimization based on historic data in order to develop and evaluate possible market actions and strategic initiatives on a dynamic scale.