Green Geam Cab Corp.: All-Hybrid Taxi Company in New Rochelle

In these days of $60 fill-ups, a company’s fuel bill can really affect its bottom line, especially if that company is in the driving business. But that’s not why New Rochelle’s Green Team Cab Corp. has an all-hybrid fleet.

“When we decided to do the hybrid thing, gas prices weren’t that big of an issue,” says Vice President of Sales and Marketing John O’Sullivan. Rather, O’Sullivan says, the impetus was to improve the overall experience of taxi customers—and if that meant lower fuel bills, lower fares for customers as a result, and lower emissions for the world, then so much the better. “We want to revolutionize this business,” O’Sullivan says.

New Rochelle native Jay O’Meara was inspired to start the company after a nearly farcical taxi trip to Saratoga, New York, during which the car stalled three times and he had to wait by the side of the road for four hours. A serial entrepreneur, O’Meara thought there was a real market for a more modern taxi company.

“At a lot of companies, there was no vision,” O’Sullivan says. “It’s the same old cars with six hundred thousand miles. They’re rust buckets.” Green Team’s fleet is new—the first all-hybrid taxi fleet in the state—and it employs “clean-cut” drivers wearing collared shirts. And the amenities go beyond doing something good for the earth: client accounts, frequent discounts, no credit card minimums, service to “everywhere,” and on long trips, customers even have a choice of beverages and magazines.

O’Meara brought in other friends, O’Sullivan among them. Together they started Green Team in December 2010 with seven hybrids (the cars’ MPG is around 50) and just enough space to dispatch at the New Rochelle train station. A year and a half later, their fleet is up to 16, with more on the way, and O’Sullivan says that ridership has increased 40 percent in just the last four to six months.

And Green Team wants to expand. “We want to be global. When somebody leaves Westchester and gets off a plane in Canada or London, we want to have our name there or alliances with other companies. It should be a seamless trip.”

Photo by Marta Kujawa