Seven years ago, Uber started its successfully expansive march over the globe, encouraging more and more cities to join in and fueling more and more entrepreneurs with the idea to repeat its feat and create something similar. That’s why from time to time we hear from people: “I want you to create Uber clone for me! How much does it cost to develop a taxi app?”.
Nowadays, when smartphone users are able to receive medical assistance and get hot meals delivered after a few screen touches, it seems natural to reckon on taxi service of the same comfortableness. Thus, taxi mobile app development seems to be very promising direction for business to be unfolded in conditions of a big city.
Key features of mobile taxi app
Cost to develop a taxi app depends on various things, particularly, country in question, its regions, type of taxi app development company (large or small agency, dedicated developers etc.) and exact list of features that are implemented in it. First of all, it should be understood that such service will require creation of two interfaces – one for passengers and one for taxi drivers, each of which would have its options.
What features do the passengers use?
1.
Registration. For using the app, clients may register their accounts and credit cards from their mobile application. For payment processing, infrastructure like
Stripe or
Braintree may be used.
2. Tracking. Passengers are able to track drivers’ location, as well as to set location of pickup by pointing the destination on the map or via Google Places.
3. Selecting cab type. Users should be able to choose car’s class along with details of the ride like price per km, price per minute and minimal fare for each type of the car.
4. Cost calculator. A mechanism that would determine the fare rate by calculating distance between points of pickup and destination.
5. Live tracking. After the taxi is booked, the client may update the cab live from their application from the initial stage like starting and ending of the trip, arrival of the cab etc.
6. Automatic Payment. All payments are cashless, so when the journey is completed, payment is withdrawn automatically via payment infrastructure’s API. Later the invoice is sent to the smartphone and to registered email address. Also, clients could able to add multiple credit cards to the system.
7. Ratings and feedbacks. Passengers should be able to write a review of their experience. This practice is good for improving service delivery to passengers.
8. Booking history. Your mobile app for taxi service may allow passengers tracking booking history.
What features do the drivers use?
1. Registration. Drivers are registered directly via their mobile application, but before they start working, their profile should be approved by admin.
2. Booking. The driver has 15 seconds to accept or deny any new booking request. Requests are displayed along with the distance from the present location and travel distance.
3. Updating status. The driver may update the client when he/she accepted or denied their request, when the pickup point was reached etc.
4. Booking History. Drivers have access to booking history, where they may view status of each order, including cancelled ones.
5. Navigation with Google. Driver may launch Google Places and Maps to get voice-driven instructions about pickup and destination points.
Features for both clients and drivers:
• Push notifications, SMS and email alerts.
• Communication facility for drivers and passengers.
• Login via Facebook account.
• Support service.
Also, if taking native development as a preference, this should be performed for both
iOS and
Android solutions rather than hybrid or cross platform applications.
Look at the leaders in the field
These guys did it. Why don’t you try as well?
• Uber
Provides quality cab services in more than 60 countries and 404 cities worldwide. This company allows people ordering taxi by using their taxi booking app, which sends the nearest licensed driver to implied starting point. Individual drivers do not work directly for the company, but cooperate with it. The service presupposes cashless payments via credit card, tied to one’s account. Uber was the first company that got so much success after implementation of their model, and jogged epidemics of creation of similar services. Check whether Uber is available in
your city. You may download the application for your
Android or
iPhone.
• Lyft
The first Uber’s competitor, Lyft also allows smartphone users quickly finding drivers are ready to give them a lift at a moderate charge. Lyft claims that their service allows people riding taxis at a price that is 30% lower than with traditional cabs. Slogan: ‘Your friend with a car’. Lyft allows splitting the cost of a ride. It operates in more than
200 U.S. cities. The app is available for your
Android or
iPhone.
• Hailo
Taxi service, similar to the ones mentioned above, which
covers some cities in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, Singapore and Japan. Hailo also provides such services like Prebook for booking rides beforehand and recovering lost items. The app may be downloaded for both
Android and
iPhone.
Server and other technical nuances of taxi mobile app
Another thing that should be remembered when you hire taxi app developers is that such app needs a server for handling multiple requests from users and making sure the cabs are delivered to user’s location as soon as possible. We may create both server and client part, as well as think up the concept at
prototyping stage, when you decide to order an app with us.
Usually mapping frameworks are used, by the help of which map interfaces are directly embedded into views of application. Map views contain flattened images of user’s surroundings. The user specifies coordinates, and they are sent to the server, where they are transformed into readable addresses and locations via GSMGeocoder service (so-called reversed decoding).
Another crucial thing for custom taxi app is integration of payment system.
Braintree or
Stripe are good services for managing online mobile payments. See their libraries here
Stripe Lib and here
Braintree Lib. You can easily use their API collections and add native payments to your taxi application. Sensitive data is encrypted before being sent to the server, thus providing high security of transactions. One integration with these systems provides access to any types of payment, including credit and debit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, Android Pay, Venmo, bitcoin etc.
Benefits of developing mobile taxi app for business
Taxi booking app development has its own set of benefits. By enhancing a ridesharing service, you invest in development of target region by favoring employment, helping drivers, satisfying user’s true needs and forming brand-loyal market. When you have a cab booking app, you can implement locally peculiar and acceptable features and introduce a larger database for supporting more people if needed. So, service providers that wish to expand their client base and facilitate their booking experience, should take a closer look at such competitive advantage and think how to build a mobile taxi app.
