To speed up development of an on-demand platform for
chauffeured transportation suppliers, Marcou Transportation Group, parent
company of Dav El and BostonCoach, acquired car service platform GroundLink on
Wednesday.
Scott Solombrino, CEO of Dav El and BostonCoach, said the
GroundLink platform will continue in its current form, and CEO
Liz Carisone will remain in her role. At the same time, MTG will tap into
its technology as
it develops an on-demand platform through which traditional chauffeured car service suppliers can compete with ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft. In
particular, it will supply technology around dispatching and location-based
pricing.
The platform will bring together thousands of small
chauffeured transportation suppliers, according to Solombrino. "This will
be the first on-demand service for the corporate market with the scale to compete
[with Uber]. This puts us on an even technology footing."
One of the next steps is to identify test markets for the
platform, Solombrino said. The service likely will begin as "near demand,"
meaning passengers can hail rides within about 30 minutes, and eventually will evolve
to on demand. It could launch within three months, he said.
Solombrino said the platform will emphasize the duty of care
offered by traditional chauffeured car suppliers, including driver training,
fingerprint background checks and drug testing.
As part of the deal, MTG also acquired Limo Anywhere, a
largely back-office platform for chauffeured suppliers. MTG plans to use Limo
Anywhere and its own developers to bulk up that offering, Solombrino said.
While he sees the acquisition as a transformation of MTG
into a technology supplier rather than a brick-and-mortar business, he added
that MTG also plans to continue consolidating
the chauffeured transportation industry. He said additional acquisitions
would be announced this year.