The system
The system we run DyComDrive on
I built this booking system for our own service on Bribie Island, with AI coding assistants under my direction, starting on 23 August 2026. Up to 30 September was concept and build: I designed it, built it and tested it. Since 30 September it has run under our own BEA, and it’s what we use every day. Below is everything it does, and whether it’s live, built or still only planned.
LIVE in use on dycomdrive.com.au today.
BUILT on our server, but switched off or not yet proven.
PLANNED on our list, not built.
Today the system runs one operator: us. Running it under another operator’s name, with their own BEA, fares and records, is planned work (the last section on this page), and there’s no date on it yet. We won’t sell what we haven’t built.
Bookings
| Feature | Status | Since | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Online booking, confirmed by a one-time code sent by text. No rider accounts or passwords | LIVE | The price is held at the version quoted; if fares change mid-booking, the rider is told | |
| Phone bookings typed in by staff, with the same rules as online | LIVE | ||
| Every booking is a request until a person confirms it | LIVE | ||
| Help needs as part of the booking: meet at the door, walk inside, vision, hearing, memory support, walker, folding wheelchair, assistance animal | LIVE | Saved on the rider’s file for next time | |
| A collection notice and the rider’s recorded consent before any sensitive note is kept | LIVE | 6 Oct 2026 | Phone bookings use a short script and a “rider agreed” tick |
| Ride preferences (a quiet ride, texts only) and a calm route (quiet roads, no motorways, no tunnels) | LIVE | Any route surcharge is in the written quote | |
| Pets in the car’s fitted boot, with an allergy rule that is never broken | LIVE | A pet trip is never shared with, or booked straight before, a rider with an animal allergy | |
| Wait & Return: one booking for there and back, with the wait included and a pickup guarantee | LIVE | Any overrun is worked out from recorded times, never a typed time | |
| Shared rides: a public list of trips a neighbour could join, showing suburb, a 30-minute window, direction and seats, never names or exact times | LIVE | Both sides approve; each rider has their own booking and their own quote, and fares only go down | |
| Ride days for mountain-bike crews: one fare per car, by enquiry | LIVE | Enquiry only, in a test phase: not yet sold as a paid trip | |
| Selling more than one seat on a shared ride | PLANNED |
Quotes, receipts and GST
| Feature | Status | Since | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fares only from versioned fare rules: a price change is a new version, never an edit | LIVE | Every quote records the version it came from | |
| A fare editor in dollars, with a plain-English summary of what changes before you save | LIVE | Built 26 Aug 2026 | |
| A written quote on every booking, by text or email, before it can be confirmed | LIVE | 6 Oct 2026 | Queensland’s Reg s 88 estimate. The quote is a ceiling |
| A receipt after every finished trip, sent automatically | LIVE | 6 Oct 2026 | Built from the record, and refused if the record disagrees with itself |
| Every receipt is a tax invoice | LIVE | 6 Oct 2026 | “Total includes GST of $X” |
| A tax invoice by email when a ride-day deposit is kept | LIVE | 7 Oct 2026 | |
| Taking a deposit with a payment link | LIVE | Sent by hand from the console today | |
| Card payments inside the system; NDIS invoicing | PLANNED | ||
| Maximum fares for wheelchair users and the Taxi Subsidy Scheme | PLANNED |
Texts, email and the phone
| Feature | Status | Since | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texts through CommsChannel, an Australian provider, from our own two-way number | LIVE | 6 Oct 2026 | |
| Replies filed against the rider’s trip for a person to read. Nothing is acted on automatically: a text saying “cancel” cancels nothing | LIVE | 2 Oct 2026 | |
| Long texts split into numbered parts at sentence ends | LIVE | 6 Oct 2026 | |
| A spending cap on texts that fails safe | LIVE | 2 Oct 2026 | |
| A text that fails becomes a to-do for a person | LIVE | 2 Oct 2026 | |
| Quotes and receipts by email for riders without a mobile, sent through Microsoft 365 | LIVE | 6 Oct 2026 | |
| Notifications to staff phones, worded so they never name anyone | LIVE | Built 28 Aug 2026 | |
| Notifications to riders’ phones | BUILT | Switched off on purpose | |
| Other text providers | BUILT | Sending is written for two more providers, not yet proven in real use | |
| An AI assistant answering the phone | PLANNED |
The office and the driver
| Feature | Status | Since | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Staff sign-in with five roles, from administrator to read-only | LIVE | 2 Oct 2026 | |
| The day sheet: today’s trips with help needs, Wait & Return times and ride-day crew | LIVE | ||
| A driver app that installs on a phone | LIVE | Built 26 Aug 2026 | With no signal it shows the last sheet and refuses taps, so no time is ever recorded late |
| A daily safety check and a duty clock that warns about fatigue | LIVE | Built 26 Aug 2026 | Warns, never blocks. The 8-hour line is our own rule, and says so |
| A shift log: the written fatigue record of when each driver was working or available | LIVE | 7 Oct 2026 | Start and end of shift; a trip opens a shift if none is open, and flags it; late entries need a reason |
| A register for every authority (BHSL, BEA, driver authorisation, inspection certificate), with a renewal banner before each expiry date entered | LIVE | ||
| Alerts when a booking request has not been answered, and a digest email of anything open | LIVE | 3 Oct 2026 |
Records and TMR reporting
| Feature | Status | Since | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| A booking history nobody can edit or delete, enforced by the database itself | LIVE | Corrections, refunds and waivers are new entries | |
| No booking without a BEA in force: the system refuses to take one, and will not confirm one the BEA does not cover | LIVE | 3 Oct 2026 | |
| An export of the booking records TMR can ask for | LIVE | One row per hirer | |
| Exports of the drive log, safety checks and shifts | LIVE | ||
| The reporting area of every trip, suggested from the suburb and confirmed by a person | LIVE | 7 Oct 2026 | |
| Quarterly and annual BEAR figures, built from the record in the order BEAR asks for them | LIVE | 7 Oct 2026 | Our first real quarter is due 28 Oct 2026; we will mark it here once filed |
| A filled copy of TMR’s reporting workbook, as a fallback | BUILT | 7 Oct 2026 | Not yet tried in BEAR. We enter figures by hand |
| Where the car was at pickup and drop-off taps | BUILT | 7 Oct 2026 | Not recording yet |
| Deleting or de-identifying booking records after 5 years | PLANNED | Due well before the first records reach 5 years |
How it is run
| Feature | Status | Since | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hosted on our own servers in Queensland, with a nightly database copy, daily backups and an alarm if a backup is missed | LIVE | Backups are also kept by Datto, in Australia | |
| Every change runs the full automated test suites before release | LIVE | Built 26 Aug 2026 | About three minutes a run |
| A database copy before every release | LIVE |
For other operators: the operator kit
| Feature | Status | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Your own copy of the system, from the same tested release as ours: your brand, domain, fares, BEA, texts, email and payment account | PLANNED | Each operator separate: your own database and records, never shared with anyone else’s |
| Your service area and places as settings | PLANNED | Ours are built around Bribie Island today |
| Several cars and drivers, chosen when a booking is confirmed | PLANNED | Today the system assumes one car and one driver |
| A practice mode for operators still waiting on their BEA | PLANNED | It would not take a real booking until your BEA is in |
| Your data stays yours: export all of it at any time (the whole database, and the TMR export, shift log and quarterly report files) in open formats, and get it all back if you leave | PLANNED | Kept 7 years by default, counted from when each record is finished with. You can choose a different period, never shorter than the law requires you to keep your records |
| Other states | NOT PLANNED YET | Each state’s law would need research first. See Guidance: other states |
The plan is to run every new release on our own service first, so nothing would reach yours that hadn’t worked on ours.
Your data is yours. Your riders’ information, bookings and records belong to you, not to us. We’d hold them for you as your service provider, in Australia, and a written service agreement sets that out, along with how you take everything with you if you leave. See how we work together.
What we will never say. The system is not “TMR-approved”: TMR authorises operators, not software. Using it does not make you compliant; it makes the records easier to keep. Compliance stays with the operator.
Thinking about your own booked-hire service?
Tell me where you’re up to. I’ll tell you honestly what I think the next step is, including when the answer is “not yet”. The first conversation is free.