Every taxi fleet knows its good weeks: payday, December, the city's festivals, back to school. But it also has weeks when the phone hardly rings. January, after the year-end spending; the summer holidays in a university city that empties out; the weeks after a big event. In those periods trips fall, drivers spend hours online with no requests and the operator starts worrying about losing them.
The thesis of this article is that the low season isn't fought with panicked reactions, such as cutting fares blindly or flooding the app with promotions, but with measurement and decisions that protect drivers' income while moving the demand that does exist. A fleet that gets through the low season well reaches the next high season with its drivers intact and its passengers still there. We'll look at how to recognise it, what to measure, how to look after drivers, how to move demand, which mistakes to avoid and how to make use of that time.
Recognising your city's low season
Every city has its own low-season calendar, and it's worth knowing it before it arrives. In many Latin American cities, January is the hardest month: people spent in December, schools are slow to restart and the general pace slows down. In university cities, the summer and winter holidays can noticeably reduce demand, because a large share of passengers leaves. In tourist cities the opposite happens: the low season is precisely when there are no visitors.
The best way to know your calendar is to look at your own history. Compare the trips for each week of last year and mark the ones that were clearly below average. Those weeks will probably repeat this year, with small variations. If your fleet is new and has no history, ask the most experienced drivers: they remember perfectly which months were hard.
Measure before reacting
When trips fall, the temptation is to act immediately. But before changing fares or launching promotions, it's worth understanding what's going on. Having fewer passengers isn't the same as having the same passengers spread across too many drivers. These are the indicators that help most to understand a low season:
- Trips per day and per week, compared with the same period last year.
- Trips per online hour for each driver.
- Average income per active driver in the week.
- Passenger waiting time, which can fall even with fewer trips.
- Number of distinct passengers booking at least one trip.
- Times and areas where the drop is largest.
If distinct passengers hold steady but each one books less, the problem is frequency, and it's worth working with the passengers you already have. If what falls is the number of passengers, perhaps they've left the city or are using another option. And if the number of trips is reasonable but trips per online hour collapse, the main problem is that too many drivers are online for the demand that exists.
Protecting drivers' income
The biggest risk of the low season isn't losing trips for a few weeks, but losing drivers for good. A driver who spends ten hours online and does four trips gets frustrated fast, and if they find another job or move to another platform, they're unlikely to come back when demand picks up. That's why the priority is for every driver who works to earn a reasonable income per hour.
The most direct way to achieve that is to adjust how many drivers are online at each time of day. Instead of everyone logging on all day, the fleet can organise shifts or suggest the busiest hours to drivers, so fewer people share the same trips. Some drivers will take the chance to go on holiday or attend to other activities, and that's not bad: a driver who rests for two weeks and comes back is better than one who leaves frustrated.
It also helps to review the costs the driver pays the fleet. If the commission or fee is fixed per week, in the low season it can become a heavy burden. Some fleets decide to adjust those terms temporarily to retain their drivers; it's each operator's decision, but it's worth making it with numbers and communicating it clearly, with a start date and an end date.
Moving the demand that does exist
Even when demand falls, it doesn't disappear. There are still trips to the hospital, to work, to the bus station and to the supermarket. The low season is a good time to work with the passengers you already know: those who stopped booking a few weeks ago, the frequent ones who could book a little more and the companies or shops that could use the service regularly.
A well-thought-out message to inactive passengers, reminding them of the service and perhaps with a modest, limited incentive, usually works better than a general promotion for everyone. Agreements with companies, hospitals, hotels or shops are another route: they generate steady trips that don't depend on the season. And scheduled trips, such as medical appointments or departures to the bus station, can be promoted more in these weeks.
The first January we lost almost half our drivers because they were online all day and getting no trips. The next year we organised shifts, explained which weeks would be slow and reached out to passengers who had stopped booking. By February we had every driver back.
Common low-season mistakes
The most common mistake is cutting fares across the board to attract passengers. In the low season, the problem is rarely the price: people simply travel less. Cutting the fare reduces the income from each trip just when drivers are already doing fewer trips, and afterwards it's very hard to raise it again without passengers noticing. If incentives are used, they should be limited, temporary and aimed at a specific group.
The second mistake is cutting precisely what sustains trust: passenger support, attention to drivers or vehicle care. Saving there may seem sensible when less income comes in, but a bad experience in January is remembered in March. The third mistake is doing nothing and waiting for it to pass. The low season ends, but what the fleet does during those weeks determines how many drivers and passengers it has when the next high season arrives.
Using the time to prepare
The low season is also an opportunity. With fewer trips, there's time to do what always gets postponed in the high season: preventive vehicle maintenance, reviewing drivers' documents that are about to expire, training new drivers and reviewing fares and zones calmly. A fleet that uses these weeks to get organised reaches the high season much better prepared.
It's also a good time to listen. With less pressure, drivers have time to say what works for them and what doesn't: areas where they always wait too long, passengers who complain about the same thing, rules nobody understands. A calm conversation in January can produce more improvements than months of scattered complaints in the high season. The same goes for frequent passengers: asking them what they'd improve about the service costs little and shows the fleet cares about them.
Finally, the low season is the ideal time to prepare for the next high season. If you know students come back in March or the city's festivities arrive in April, you can recruit and train new drivers calmly, without the rush of the busy weeks. A driver who joins in the low season learns the city and the app without pressure, and is ready when they're needed most.
Reaching the next season intact
The low season is inevitable, but its effects aren't. A fleet that knows its calendar, measures before reacting, protects its drivers' hourly income, works with the passengers it already has and avoids panicked decisions gets through those weeks without losing what it worked hard to build. When demand returns, it has its drivers and passengers ready.
If you want to start today, check your history for your slowest weeks last year, work out your drivers' trips per online hour and prepare a message explaining to them what's coming and what you'll do. They're three simple steps that change how you live through the low season. And with Cabgo you can launch your own branded taxi app to stay in touch with your passengers all year round.
