Eureka Taxis Ballarat: Team performs record-breaking trip to Wagga Wagga

A Ballarat taxi company who performed its longest trip in history and tripled its fleet in one year, has revealed the story behind its success.

A Ballarat taxi company who recently performed a 500km trip, the longest in its history, has tripled its fleet and the number of its drivers in its first year of business.

Eureka Taxis Ballarat was founded in 2020 with two drivers and two cars.

All parts of the business are run from Ballarat, and within roughly 12 months, it has expanded to a fleet of seven cars and six drivers.

Co-owner Vivienne Wilson attributed the rapid development to Eureka’s personal approach.

“I had a bad experience once and I’ve never gone into a taxi since,” she said.

“Since I’ve started it’s been a bit of an eye opener of the gaps within the system.

“We make sure that we go an extra mile, making sure the groceries go in the car, helping them to bring it to their doorstep — a lot of the customers comment that a lot of their [other] drivers don’t do it.

“We do specialise in women and children when we get calls from the police or from agencies requiring female drivers.”

Earlier in November, co-owner Matthew Matters took the longest trip in the company’s history — a nearly-600km journey from Ballarat to Wagga Wagga, including a break every three hours, for a customer who had a family emergency.

He said the drive was “pretty straightforward” and “fairly comfortable”.

“It happened to be that that night I wasn’t on the road, so I was the only driver that wasn’t fatigued,” Mr Matters said.

“It was all pre-planned the night before, and that’s a lot of what our work is.

“We focus on the customer service aspect, but we’re growing so fast compared to our competition because we actually listen to our customers.”

Ms Wilson said such distant jobs were uncommon, but “there was no way around it”.

“We just accommodated what the customer’s requirements were,” she said, adding that the frequent breaks, aside from complying with driver fatigue laws, ensured “the customer gets there safely as well as my driver”.

“It’s exciting for any driver because we all as drivers tend to compete to see who goes the furthest,” she said.

“It’s just a bit of tongue in cheek and keeps the momentum going as well.

“We spread it across the drivers as well.”

Ms Wilson said with the business booming, she was now looking for a permanent driver in Ballan.