A Taxi-Rental App to Find Cabs Across Taiwan
Industry - On-Demand Service
Tech Stack
Overview
Taiwan is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. The streets are always jam-packed with people and finding taxis is always a strenuous task, especially if someone is looking for a cab during the rush hours. Our client, a daily commuter himself, understood this challenge and embarked on a journey to turn it into a new business opportunity.
His idea was to develop a mobile app that would allow any user in Taiwan to locate nearby cabs, get an estimated fare, and instantly book a cab to the desired destination. To turn his brainchild into a working mobile application, started looking for developers who had the skills and expertise to build two separate native applications for Android and iOS.
The research led him to RV Technologies’ profile and our diverse portfolio encouraged him to put his faith in our development team. After a detailed to-and-forth with their team in Taiwan, we devised a full-fledged development strategy and began building native solutions for both Android and iOS.
Challenges
Unexpected challenges are an inevitable part of any project. At RV Technologies, however, we believe in evaluating these challenges right in the beginning to keep the development cycle running without any unnecessary interruptions.
With FindTaxi, the biggest challenge was to simultaneously work on two different projects (for both the platforms) and establish synchronized communication between both teams to ensure timely delivery. To overcome this hurdle, both the teams evaluated a common ground, designed the blueprint for User Interface (UI), and finalized the features that catered to the specified user requirements.
Once the teams were ready with their development plans, they chose the right tech stack for both the platforms and moved towards the development phase.
Solution
Optimizing Real-Time Geo-Location Synchronization to Avoid Geo-Tracking Delays
One of the primary objectives for FindTaxi - TaxiFinder was to develop a mobile solution that would automatically fetch the most accurate user location within seconds. Speed was a prerequisite for FindTaxi - Taxi Finder otherwise the company would have lost its potential customers to other Taiwan-based taxi service providers.
Our team integrated a dedicated geolocation API with appropriate APIs to ensure that the users can find nearby taxis without encountering any unexpected lags. This resulted in better user retention and allowed FindTaxi to build a strong customer base in the longer run.
Some of the basic features of FindTaxi included:
- Locate Nearby Taxis
- Personalized Search Results
- Real-Time Route Optimization
- In-App Payment Support
The Passenger App
1 Profile Management
We started by building a navigable dashboard for the passenger’s app to help users keep a track of their daily rides and find new cabs easily. While setting up their profile, users have the liberty to create an account from scratch to fetch their personal details from Facebook or Gmail. The social media integration made the entire sign-up process more convenient, allowing customers to get to the real features right away.
2 Schedule Rides
The rush-hour traffic in cities like Taoyuan and Taichung is way more overwhelming than one can imagine. In order to beat the traffic and stay punctual, users also have the ability to schedule their rides before their planned departure. As soon as a passenger schedules a cab, the app automatically finds a driver and shares the details with him via a push notification.
3 Phone Verification
Phone verification is another integral feature of an on-demand service like FindTaxi - TaxiFinder as it prevents people from setting up fake user accounts. Moreover, if the passengers’ phone numbers are verified, the drivers would be able to contact them immediately and start the ride without any delays.
4 Personalized Search Results
Personalized Results is probably the USP of FindTaxi - Finder that made it a better on-demand taxi service platform than other available options in Taiwan. Through the “Drivers” tab, the passengers could simply set their preferences by applying dedicated filters to get the most suitable cabs in the search results.
5 Group Rides
For vacations or longer distances, the passengers can also book group rides and save money that they would have otherwise spent on multiple rental cars. While booking group rides, one can also “guide requirement” in the search filters to find a cab service along with a designated tour guide.
5 Payment Support
Our developers also integrated a dedicated payment gateway API so that passengers can choose from a variety of payment modes and pay for the ride using their preferred method. Apart from online payments, the passengers could also choose “offline payment” to pay their fare once the ride completes.
The Driver’s App
1 Route Optimization
We integrated Google Maps API (Android) and Apple’s MapKit API (iOS) to make route calculation more accurate for drivers. As soon as a driver accepts a ride alert, the app automatically prompts him to the map with the shortest possible navigation to reach the passenger’s location on time.
2 Availability Status
With a simple tap on their screen, the drivers can clock in and start getting customer requests right away. Once they are happy with their daily earnings, the drivers can simply turn off their availability status and go offline.
3 Daily Payouts
At the end of the day, the app will automatically calculate the driver’s accumulated earnings and add them to the wallet. From the wallet, the driver can directly transfer the amount to a bank account within a few seconds.
4 Destination Filter
Like the passenger app, the drivers can also add their specific preferences to avoid certain locations using the destination filter. By applying the filter, drivers will only receive requests from customers who are heading in a particular direction.
Results
A Taxi Locator That Acquired 500,000+ Downloads on the App Store
RV Technologies executed a time-tested development approach and managed to achieve fast time-to-market to help the client launch their app before the specified deadline. With its unique set of features and an easy-to-navigate user interface, FindTaxi - Taxi Finder acquired 1 Million+ accumulated downloads on both Google Play Store and the App Store.
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1 Million+ Combined Downloads
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4.9 User Rating on Google Play Store
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4.8 User Rating on Apple’s App Store
Even today, FindTaxi remains one of the most popular on-demand taxi service platforms in Taiwan by constantly helping thousands of daily commuters find cabs in no time.