emergency medical technician

transport driver

driver

driver (independent contractor)

mechanic

zTrip

There is so much going on with this place that I don’t even know where to start. 
First off, the training is all but nonexistent. 
I got told about it through a text less than 24 hours before I was supposed to be there. The trainer was nice, but the training was very subpar. About a 3-4 hour run through of some things and filling out some paperwork.
Secondly you’re a 10-99 Independent Contractor which sounds great at first, but then eats your money on paper. From a “business” standpoint, you don’t make any real money here. You’re basically paying zTrip to work for them.
There was no training on the shop(maintenance) procedures and my tablet got locked because I missed an oil change I knew nothing about.
The 3 types of medical contracts they aren’t really explained by anyone, or trained on very well at all.
The entire company is SEVERELY disjointed. The different “operations” in the building don’t feel like they are fluid or operating together at all. (Front Desk, Dispatch, Payment Window, Shop).
The whole attitude is just very nonchalant.
I tried to ask questions so I understand what I’m doing and how to do it, and I get met with the people I’m asking not really knowing the answers, or giving me the most basic answer possible where it honestly makes me feel like I’m bothering them by asking some questions. But due to the lack or training and communication, the whole thing just feels COMPLETELY disjointed.
You have to eventually pay a lease of $107.50 a day Mon-Sat ($645 a week) just to use the car. 
This is where the numbers don’t make sense from a business standpoint.
You can only do so many jobs an hour practically. And unless you’re doing really long or high mileage medical trips, the around town stuff just doesn’t really give you enough substantial money to take home at the end of the day.  I have worked 10-12 hour days for days on end and basically had nothing to show for it. 
All credit and debit transactions are 5% processing fee. And all 3 types of medical trips are 10% processing fees. So even after 2 or 3 days of MAYBE putting an extra $300-$350 in the bank after your lease, processing fees, AND security deposits, then you have to factor out 20-30% in taxes depending on where you fall (cause remember, you’re an independent contractor now, so you get to pay it all!), and factor out the gas that you had to pay for to make the money. AND CONGRATULATIONS, after working several 10-12 hour almost nonstop days you’re left with somewhere between $150 -$200 of actual money that you can use.
After crunching all the numbers, even if you made $5,000 a month, then you will have paid $2,580 automatically towards the daily lease, about $1,200-$1,500 in taxes, and then all the gas you purchased that month leaving you with maybe $1,400  for THE ENTIRE MONTH after working 9-12 hours days EVERYDAY. 
NO THANK YOU!!! Not worth it at all. The numbers just don’t make sense. And you can’t make them make sense with the pay scale for the trips and how long some of them take. You can only practically do some many a day and so many an hour, and the money is just not there unless it’s just consecutive long and high mileage trips.

In job description it says $20/hr. On paper it's true, in practice it's much less. You have to pay to gas up the van (company provided) every day out of your pocket, no compensation nor company card to pay it for you. You also lose money for time spent OFFLINE in their app and that offline time is when you're unpaid, but you can go offline for up to 30 minutes at a time whenever you want (restroom, lunch breaks). Training is inconsistent from Driver to Driver and too little time spent.

But the folks at the office? The atmosphere? Surprisingly great. The two managers there are chill, yet on point. The phrase "Professionally casual" come to mind. 

The hours are inconsistent too which also makes you lose money. You can be scheduled for a 7.5hr shift but there are often no vans available when you come in the afternoon so you'll waste time waiting for a van to come in. You're also expected to clean the van AND start on time which is impossible when you've been waiting for 1 hour or longer to start working.

Pay to gas the van, offline time is unpaid, delayed start due to van unavailability and there is nothing you can do about it. Unfortunately, there is nothing anyone can do about it until management is given more money to buy more vans. There's always a number of vans that are out of order and they're relatively old or dated vans too. Dodge Caravans ceased production in 2020 and that's all they have (except one van of different brand) and they're in "good enough" shape. 

You don't get to truly make your schedule, technically you're your own boss, but you operate like an employee. You may or may not be able to pick your shift (you have shifts) based on availability, but the managers are just awesome about trying to help you get the schedule you want and are on point when it comes to communication and just leveling with you no BS at all. No drama, no fake stuff, no BS managers. 

$20 minus all that stuff for a 7.5hr shift came out to about $13.60. THIS IS NOT YOUR MAIN JOB, THIS IS A SIDE GIG AT BEST. If you're fine with fluctuating gas prices which eats at your profits then have fun with $82 daily net when gas goes back up to $4.69 (before calculating money lost from offline time).

Here's the kicker: I'm talking about Via Link which I was hired for instead of zTrip. zTrip provides drivers for Via Link. Driving for zTrip pays MUCH LESS even if you use your own car. Via Link and zTrip are NOT going to pay your bills unless you're driving all day into the night, get home at 11 just to work at 6am. zTrip is the employer, yet assigned to Via Link...uh, ok.

Not recommended at all. Dead end job doesn't pay enough. Better off with a online college and invest in yourself instead of throwing money away. You're paying to work whether or not you drive for zTrip or Via Link.

So when I first started I was bankrolling about 200 to 250 bucks a day in 12 hours or less. But after about a month, my revenue dropped off due to an increased hiring of drivers. 

There were about 8 to 10 of us on a regular basis at any given time of the day. That meant market share was good. But once that driver number began to climb past 10, market share dropped significantly. Combine that with some slow days and it became a recipe for failure. 

The last couple weeks I saw 15 to 19 drivers logged in at virtually all hours of the day. So the days of 200 bucks fell to a measly 90 buck average day. My worst day was when I ended up with only 2 calls in 9 hours time. 

How does a business like this expect its drivers to keep up with the weekly lease when its killing its own market share by adding more drivers in?? 

Now the only plus side that could save a driver from losing their shirt is IF and only IF they can get a steady flow of customers who need trips to places outside of Albuquerque. Those are charged by flat rates and can be serious money makers. 

You are an independant business owner with zTrip. 
The question is, can you really spend the necessary time in order to market your business?? Only you will know that. But for me I knew I didnt have that time. I was too busy working long hours to try and make the lease and too tired when I came home. 

Paying for fuel along with the lease ($650.00/WK) is taxing on you if your revenue generation ever begins to drop off like mine did. 

So again.. IF and only IF you can generate the kind of regular clientel that can make your business profitable then its not worth your time and effort. Too bad because it could have been so good.

No matter how hard you do you job, management takes the drivers side over dispatch and drivers take advantage of this. There is no discipline for drivers getting out of hand. There were drivers who actually had people thrown from the back of the car to the front and still have a job. If dispatch ever made changes to a drivers manifest, the drivers would get mad, call the managers, and the managers take the trips off for them, which then forces us to to load up people who are actually reliable and that is costing gas and more wear and tear on their cars because the other drivers refuse to take trips. Management comes up with rules on the spot, and when we try to enforce them, they tell us that sometimes we have to adjust the rules sometimes. We are managing 5 different dispatch programs, while taking 500 plus calls a day. If we miss something then management would ask what we have been doing all day. Driver's complain non-stop, passengers are mad because their trips are late and we can't do anything because the system is broken. We have dispatchers not doing their jobs, which then puts more work on the people that do. When I told the manager that I was going to quit, they were like "Ok, yeah sometimes it's hard to be the voice between passenger and driver, some people have and some don't." Nobody wants to fix any problems, they hire and shove drivers any which way without proper training. Our dispatch training is just a 30 minute Powerpoint on what to do and not to do, which no one ever follows these rules anyway, and then throw us out and kind of have to teach ourselves. I would avoid this place a dispatcher, driver and any other job. 

It's hard to make enough money working for this company. They charge too much for their cabs, and when things come up, like inclement weather, and bad road conditions, you either drive or get stuck paying the $90 for the cab that day, or you turn the car in ( driving it ) so you don't have to pay for it, but then who knows when you'll get the car back because there is a waiting list.

The expectations are unrealistic. If you don't work 7 days a week, it's very difficult to keep up with your lease plus have enough money for bills and food.  They don't even give a free day for Christmas and Thanksgiving. I think they could be less greedy. 

The only way to make decent income is to own your own car and use it, instead of leasing their cars. I don't recommend working for this company. It will leave you in a bind when you have a few slow days, and you can't pay enough on your lease...then you get in a rut of not having any money for yourself and your bills, plus you get in the negative with paying for the car.

Also, many if the trips are small and there are lots of days you get mostly $5 and $6 trips, sometimes several, and there are lots of no shows so you waste time with that.  You can see how...if most of your trips are small, it takes a lot to reach $90 just for the cab that day. The base fare should be higher. 

Unfortunately, where we live, the clientele is mostly poor or on a tight budget, so customers complain about even paying just $6 or $7 and I've also had a few customers not pay at all.

What is the best part of working at the company?
For me the best part of working there is the staff, especially the women admins and cashier. Super friendly and personable…genuine help and wanting us to succeed.
Driving the car/van home is wonderful as well. (Using it for personal use)

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The most stressful part is paying the car/van lease each day. I would stress out if we were slow. The seasoned cab driver that trained me said, “Cab driving is not for everyone.”
One has to be extremely motivated and willing to work 12 hour shift to make profit after paying the car lease.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
The main office and the mechanic shop is organized and clean. There are newcomers and old timers driving the cabs and helping one another is seen amongst them.
Encouraging safety, safety, safety while driving while providing the customer with a comfortable ride to their destination. The drivers are also trained to work swiftly and engaging the customer if led to do so.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
I drove one by of the wheelchair vans and transported clients to and from doctor appointments, dialysis, to their family on holidays etc.
My work day began at 5am. I had regular clients that have to go to dialysis three times a week. I worked Monday-Saturday 
5am-6pm sometimes later depending work load.

My time at zTrip was constantly filled with the nagging question: am I really selling people on something helpful? Corporate marketing was good at manipulating information to make it seem like drivers made good money when those with good attention to detail would see through the lies. It's hard for an honest person to work there in a capacity that interacts with drivers. zTrip provides HORRIBLE service with no standards and driver success is like a pyramid with a few ones on top carrying the average while most drivers actually work 65+ hours for about $40-60k. The thing is, in zTrip's model, they always win. Sometimes the driver wins too and sometimes the customer wins too, but zTrip never loses. This is not a company anyone should be proud to work at.

In my opinion, the corporate side genuinely wants to improve the company, but everything centered around $$$. Safety was a big push for a while, but only when accidents were affecting profitability - once we stopped having accidents the upper management stopped caring about safety and moved on to the next item affecting the bottom line. It's possible things have improved since I was there and it's possible they will more, but I'd have to see something crazy change before I'd support the organization. You won't see me ordering a taxi any time soon.

     Barely any training (2 few hour days on the rules and paperwork; a few hours riding along with an experienced driver to see how to use app and ask questions). There is no follow up help, no offline or off the clock practice with the app (it's complicated to get used to). Most "rides" provide very little information about where the destination is or pick up location until you except, then you only get the pick location. The Vouchers rides are fixed fares so even if the gas, wait, traffic, and meter proves that it is a larger fare cost, you only get the set rate which is way cheaper. There can be "favorites" of the dispatcher and they get the best fare offers that include high paying fares out of town while the newbies drive back and forth all over town for fares that are $10 or less. The cost to lease the cab $104 pay for your own gas, and get taxed a 5% fee on every credit and debit charge or voucher account. AND TO ADD ONTO all the fees you already have to pay daily, you have a daily $10. Fee deductible for $1500 insurance.


Keep in the back of your mind that you will need to generate roughly $120/day to break even. $100 for vehicle and $20 for gas. I'm sure there are variables but to put in perspective, that's your overhead costs per day. To get there you may have a couple of rides that generate $25-$45 each, but you'll also have ones that are $8-$12 and finding and getting to fare takes time. There are people that are making decent money working there I'm sure but you need to get in the hours. 
I couldn't handle the drunks and the druggies that were demanding, rude and potentially harmful. I stayed for around 3 weeks, but that lease and gas fee was there every day so no taking it easy.
I also was disappointed in training. Rode with a driver for couple of hours, didn't show any use of fare computer, paperwork etc. Didn't know the details on the screen, how to use CC terminal etc. Very frustrating.

I was off duty having an entire conversation about different races not coming together at a prior job while using slang amongst my peir, the triggered cam made them send me an email where in a sentence using slang for every race of ppl they were offended and highlighted one word and you can guess which race it offended.  Then on the professional side I've driven for ztrip in other states and Jacksonville charges too much,they take 2% of federal paid transport money for medical patients, they use the low pay start weeks to force you to attend a class about joining them in an airport cruise port takeover. And I walked in on 2 of the main ppl in charge as one said I like my n×#@as begging for a job.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Emergency medical technician 462 salaries reported	$60,000 per year
Transport driver 5 salaries reported	$69,900 per year
Driver 2 salaries reported	$20.86 per hour
Driver (independent contractor) 10 salaries reported	$60,000 per year
Mechanic 6 salaries reported	$23.25 per hour

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