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Rideshare Software to Implement Multiple Business Models

It has been over a decade since the ride-hailing companies started to emerge. The types of businesses and approaches of various companies differed resulting in rise of multiple business models. However, each of these businesses including Uber, Lyft, Via, and Juno have one common factor – the entire business stands on rideshare software systems with mobile app-based interfaces.

The swift developments in rideshare systems introduced certain business models. However, there is no standard nomenclature which can classify the models into distinct kinds. CabStartup makes this classification so that we can precisely explain the aim of every feature of our rideshare software to clients.

Following are the three most generic models. Every ride-hailing business on planet falls into one of these three kinds.

On-demand Rides

Uber introduced first ever globally recognized rideshare services in 2009. The initial services model offered on-demand taxi only. The notable distinctions of this model from traditional taxi businesses include:

  • Booking a taxi through mobile app
  • Privately-owned vehicles
  • Ensuring pickup at passenger’s doorstep

Uber with its on-demand taxi business went on a taxi disruption spree. Every state capital and other metropolitan areas adopted Uber quickly. As the competition heated up with the advent of Lyft in the US and other apps elsewhere, Uber incorporated more features. While initially it offered payment through credit card only, the service integrated multiple payment gateways later.

Although the business model remained same for roughly the initial three years, yet the rideshare giant expanded its targeted niche with Uber Black, Uber Select, UberXL, UberSUV, and a bunch of region specific services.

Out of all the services, on-demand Bike Rideshare Platform is or simply Uber MOTO deserves a separate. The service enables passengers to schedule a bike along with qualified rider who drives the passenger to desired location. Bike rides are gaining attraction for their small cost of operation allowing drivers and service provider to earn more. They are also ideal for customers who intend to save money.

Lyft started with the same business model offering on-demand taxi as Uber in 2012. However, this startup based its marketing on touting its social responsibility efforts regarding assistance to drivers. This was significant because Uber drivers earned lesser while they worked more than Lyft drivers.

Carpool App

Uber remained an undisputed ride-hailing giant for three years. It was impractical for a new startup to outperform Uber with the same business model and marketing. Thus, the model of Via was based on carpooling. In essence, it allowed passengers to book a seat in a ride instead of booking the entire vehicle. This idea worked for the following reasons:

  1. The average fare is lower as it is divided among each passenger in a ride.
  2. The average car occupancy in the US and UK is 1.67 and 1.59 persons, respectively. Carpooling earns support of administrations due to its ability to significantly reduce traffic.
  3. All of the on-demand taxi features except pickup from passenger’s doorstep.
  4. Routes are not fixed. Instead, they are dynamic depending on the pickup points and final destination.

Although carpooling does not ensure to pick passengers precisely from their location every time, yet it does pick them from a nearby pickup – mostly located in a 500 meters radius. It rests on service provider of rideshare software to change the size of this radius. In some cases, customer’s location falls in the way of vehicle’s route.

Dynamic routes imply that the path of ride would update each time when it accepts a request from a passenger. This feature ensures that a vehicle follows the most suitable path despite the fact that the pickup locations of passengers are spread.

Carpooling model remained highly successful as it prompted Uber to adopt it in 2014. Uber branded its version as UberPOOL. Although Lyft introduced mobile app-based carpooling years later, yet its founders offered interstate rideshare pooling even before existence of Uber through Zimride.

Rideshare Software for Rental Rides

Considering the success of on-demand economy, some of the existing rental companies as well as startups launched on-demand car rental services. These services differed from carpooling and taxi services in a number of ways:

  1. Vehicles in on-demand car rental model are used for short spans. A customer can acquire it for as low as 30 minutes.
  2. The driver is unavailable. Requesting party is responsible to drive the vehicle. However, some services offer driver upon request.
  3. Customers are able to unlock the vehicle using personal machine readable cards.
  4. Geo-fence or operational area is excessively large as compared to carpool or taxi services. Thus, customers can take the vehicle outside the city too.

Enterprise CarShare, Cars By Hour, Zipcar, and Turo are some of the notable examples in the US which have implemented this model. There is a massive market for on-demand car rental services because people often require traveling to multiple locations within a relatively small time. If instead they choose to travel by taxi, the cost would be substantially higher. Choosing carpool would take far more time on average.

Rideshare Software App for Bikes provides another variant. The only difference is that of type of vehicle. The bikes in rideshare businesses do not offer rider unlike on-demand bikes. Moreover, it is impractical to use bikes for long distance rideshare. This model gained immense popularity after the introduction of electric scooters. Both Uber and Lyft offer e-scooters now.

Ridesharing Management Software

With rideshare businesses operating at such a broad scale, it is essential for service providers to have a flexible underlying rideshare platform. The providers would require scale up and integration of more features in future.

For instance, if your company currently offers on-demand taxi, you would soon need to expand it to offer carpooling and rental rides too. This is because governments are aiming to adopt mobility-as-a-service model which implies integration of various business models into large-scale transportation networks.

CabStartup is at the forefront of rideshare innovations occurred in the past five years. We developed successful startups as well as assisted existing taxi and transportation companies to achieve sustainability. We would love to have you as one of our partners so that we can innovate together. Start the free trial of CabStartup rideshare software right now.

By Shahrukh Satti 0 Comments

Advanced Features for Ride Hailing Apps to Outsmart Rivals

Dozens of ride-hailing startups make their ways into the market every year. Although only a few of them manage to survive for over a couple of years, yet the competition is still getting tougher. Some essential features are unmistakable while others are complementing the existing features of a ride-hailing app. However, the fierce competition demands proactive approach to add even more innovative features which enable you to outperform the rivals.

This article suggests five features whose adoption is going to be crucial for ride-hailing companies in the upcoming times. Three of these options are already being tested by ride-hailing giants like Uber.

Fullstack subscription

If you own a ride-hailing business, there is a good chance that you might want to introduce another on-demand startup as well in the future. It is advisable to offer various services from same app to prevent customers from multiple-app overheads.

Uber initially offered ride hailing app but started Uber Eats as a subsidiary. The two business models work independently in their respective domains. Each model has its own ride hailing apps to serve customers and drivers.

However, Uber’s recent stint involves offering a range of previously independent services from primary Uber app. In essence, customers can now order food via Uber app originally meant for ride-hailing. This update received decent reception from customers who have lesser apps to manage. Uber successfully experimented mergers of its businesses in the past too.

Apart from facilitating customers by providing all services through a single app, Uber is also starting to expand its subscription offers. With its first such subscription package, Uber offers free food delivery and jump scooter rides apart from discounted rides on other ride-hailing options.

Lite Ride Hailing App

As the competition between ride-hailing businesses is heating up, lite versions of apps are becoming essential. Research at Think With Google reveals that exhausting phone memory is the most frequent reason for users to delete an app. The study also noted same results for rideshare apps.

A lite app is a variant of the original app consuming markedly lesser memory than the original version. For instance, Uber Lite consumes 5MB space on Android devices whereas original Uber app takes 180MB. In all, lite variants of ride-hailing apps offer following benefits.

  1. It consumes roughly 36 times lesser memory considering Uber for Android.
  2. Lite apps are compatible with older Android devices.
  3. Processing speed of lite apps is faster on older devices.

However, lite apps provide only a limited functionality as compared to the regular apps. Still, it fulfills the essential needs of passengers. For instance, it provides a simple interface to book ride. Although the map for tracking drivers does not update in real time as in the case of regular app, yet it updates every 10 seconds or less.

Besides, Uber Lite does not offer feature to change pickup location once added. While it offers communication through phone call, the feature for chat is absent. Nevertheless, feature for change of pickup point can be easily added during ride-hailing app development or later without costing a significant change in size of app.

PIN for public places

Both Lyft and Uber are testing a new feature which is aimed at reducing the wait time at airports or, for that matter, all public places. Instead of usual procedure where a passenger requests the ride and one of the nearest drivers accepts it, this ride-hailing app feature allows passengers to schedule the first available ride in queue at airport.

The passenger shares unique Personal Identification Number (PIN) with the first available driver who then enters the PIN into s/he’s app. This way the two parties connect. Rest of the procedure is as usual.

The feature enables rideshare services to serve passengers at airport in markedly lesser time as the vehicles are already available in queue.

Besides, it would save costs and time of drivers as well who often have to travel miles before reaching the location of passenger. PIN feature is a win-win-win for ride-hailing service providers, drivers, and passengers.

Uber for Healthcare

Ambulances serve as the de facto standard for decades to drive patients to healthcare centers. The cost of ambulance includes patient care staff and healthcare equipment apart from the ride itself.

However, research indicates that most of the cases where an ambulance services are sought do not pose a serious threat to patient’s life. Moreover, the statistics from the US urban areas reveal that time consumed by Uber is half of what an ambulance takes on average.

Regardless of the knowledge about these statistics, urban residents are more inclined toward calling an Uber instead of an ambulance. One academic study supports this claim. It confirms 7% reduction in per capita ambulance seeking volume since advent of UberX. The significantly smaller costs and time consumption of ride-hailing services explain this shift.

Considering the number of people seeking ride-hailing services to transport patients, it would be appropriate to keep a specific section in ride-hailing apps. Although you do not need to keep dedicated drivers to serve such ride requests, yet the driver would be in knowledge that the scheduled rider is a patient. The dispatch bot system for medical transportation software is essentially the same as that for ride-hailing systems.

Cryptocurrency for Ride Hailing Companies

The ride-hailing companies until now – and up to some point in future – are using centralized payment approach. In essence, they use services of third party payment gateway providers. These gateways include credit cards from banks and other online payment systems like PayPal and Stripe. Using this approach, they need to pay a percentage of earning to service providers.

However, they can prevent a share of gateway providers by incorporating decentralized payment approach for your business. Cryptocurrency like Bitcoin offers the most effective decentralized method for ride-hailing apps. The giants in ride-hailing industry including Uber, Lyft, and Via in the US and those elsewhere are planning to introduce Blockchain-based payment.

The adoption of this approach would be a paradigm shift but undeniably challenging. Ride-hailing consumers are using traditional centralized method for over a decade. Thus, the challenge involves encouraging and enabling them to use the service seamlessly.

An effective approach to achieve this feat would be keeping the existing methods while offering payment through cryptocurrency in parallel so that people can use traditional payment scheme as well while they learn the new one.

Start your ride-hailing business today with an unparalleled dispatch platform from CabStartup. You can begin the free trial of platform right now.

By Shahrukh Satti 0 Comments

A Comprehensive Guide to Acquiring Taxi Management Software

There are flexible options for taxi business owners and startup enthusiasts to choose the most suitable taxi management software. A range of software systems and platforms allows customers to acquire one which remains within their financial budget. CabStartup offers taxi dispatch platform as well as Uber app clone. The business owners who intend to acquire one of the modules separately use app clones. The details of platform are shared below.

Dispatch Platform Overview

This is a complete cloud-based platform which includes apps for passenger, driver, a dispatch panel and an admin panel.

Taxi management software

Passenger App in Taxi Management Software

The taxi companies and startups utilizing CabStartup platform provide their passengers with an app having easy interface and efficient software. The app has following features.

Two-Tap Booking

Frequent users of ride-hailing apps often travel to some locations more than the other. Thus, it is wise to offer them a quick booking option. The app for passengers allows them to tap onto of the suggested locations which appear once the passenger opens the app. First tap enables them to select the location while second tap confirms the request for ride.

Proximity Search

The app informs passenger about all the drivers located in the vicinity. This feature enables them to pick the most suitable ride depending on time and cost factor. For instance, the nearest ride may not be the cheapest one. Conversely, the passenger aims to schedule the cheapest ride which might be farther than expensive rides. Therefore, proximity feature provides flexibility in choosing the ride with suitable options.

Encrypted Chat

Privacy concerns are peaking for the past few years. Owing to the demands in GDPR for Europe and state legislations in the US, CabStartup offers encrypted chat. Thus, no third-party can access the driver-passenger chat remotely. The access requires acquiring permission from local transportation regulators. This encryption ensures excessive satisfaction for passengers.

Real-time Tracking and ETA

The passengers can track the ride in real-time once s/he schedules a ride. This GPS-powered technology shows the current location of driver with an error margin of less than a meter. ETA or estimated arrival time also keeps on updating as the driver approaches near. Both taxi tracking software and ETA are vital for time management at passengers’ end.

The Driver of Choice

Many passengers are more comfortable while traveling with some drivers than others. CabStartup platform also facilitates passengers to request the driver of their choice. This facility further enhances the flexibility of choosing the most appropriate ride after proximity search.

Automated Fare Estimation

Fare estimate is crucial for every passenger who intends to acquire economical rides. Irrespective of passenger’s intention, CabStartup passenger app provides automated estimation on fare before confirmation of each ride. The app also provides information on surge pricing. In essence, the fare might be higher at times due to excessive demand. In such times, the fare multiplies by a factor which is calculated using number of available rides and distance from passenger’s pickup location.

Flexible Payment Options

The app enables passengers to pay via one of the payment methods. Apart from credit card, the app also offers e-wallet which maintains credit on customer’s and driver’s end. E-wallet allows passengers to top-up their balance and use it until the existing balance exhausts. Ride-hailing companies offer passengers to pay via hard cash in some countries where passengers rarely use credit card. Thus, CabStartup also integrates option for hard cash payment.

Push Notifications for Ride Status

Once a passenger schedules a ride, the app notifies passenger with every update that s/he should know. For instance, the app alarms the passenger when the taxi approaches within one minute of pickup location and once it arrives. Moreover, passenger also receives notification for message from driver and for e-receipt after the ride ends.

Rating and Feedback

Feedback enables taxi and ride-hailing companies to improve services and eliminate the shortcomings. The app allows passengers to rate the driver from 1 to 5 inclusive. Apart from rating, it also allows passengers to leave a feedback. The structure of feedback feature is defined in such a way that each bad review goes to the administration which reassesses it to penalize or acquit driver accordingly.

Accessing Trip History and Receipt

The passengers are able to access history of each of their previous trips. This facility enables them to rate the driver and ride at some later point. Moreover, the feature also enables them to review their trip fare and complaint if they suspect an unjust charge. At the end of each trip, the app generates an automated email and a text message which are directed to the email address and phone number associated with passenger’s profile.

Jump to: pricing structure

Driver App with Taxi Management Software

The dispatch platform includes driver app which capacitates drivers to increase efficiency and earn more in lesser time. The most notable features of driver app are as follows.

Real-time Route Optimization

Driver app provides the most suitable route to passenger’s pickup location and then to the drop-off location. This AI-based route planner updates the route in real-time depending on the changing traffic volumes on various roads. The recommendation of route depends on multiple factors including traffic volume, distance to the intended location, and quality of roads.

Eliminating Idle Time

One of the most painful factors for taxi drivers and gig workers of ride-hailing companies is the excessive idle time before one gets a ride. CabStartup driver app informs drivers about other drivers in the vicinity. This ability allows them to relocate to a region within the geo-fence where demand is relatively higher. In this way, drivers can markedly reduce idle time.

Automated Fare Split

As per usual practices, a part of the fare goes to the taxi company while the rest of it is divided between driver and vehicle owner. Instead of grilling the administration in manually calculating share of each stakeholder, CabStartup automatically splits the fare. The app shares the information of split with drivers, vehicle owners, and admins while keeping it hidden from passengers.

Change Availability Status

The taxi management app allows drivers to go offline whenever they intend so. While taxi companies keep full-time employees, ride-hailing startups mostly hire gig workers. The workers in latter case are not confined to serve fixed number of hours. Instead, they can go offline as many times in a day as they want. CabStartup facilitates them by going offline with a single tap on smartphone app.

Drivers in Vicinity

Each driver is able to determine the number of drivers and the consequent degree of demand in an area. The demand varies inversely with number of drivers. An area has more idle drivers when available vehicles are more than number of requesting passengers. Vicinity assessment allows drivers to reposition them in a way that each of them is able to get rides.

Passenger Request Details

The app shows details of passenger who requests the ride. Apart from facilitation in ensuring that driver picks the right passenger, this feature also enables drivers to assess passengers through accumulative of their ratings. Since the app allows drivers to cancel a ride request, the drivers can decide to cancel it at any time before picking up the passenger.

Easy Communication

There are instances where driver is unable to locate passenger due to incorrect pickup location set by the latter. The app enables drivers to facilitate passengers by communicating with them in real-time via messages as well as phone call. CabStartup integrates either in-app chat and call or regular text messages and phone calls. The former requires continuous and fast internet connection. Thus, in-app conversation works well in regions with high-speed internet availability.

Feedback about Passenger

In the early years of ride-hailing industry, only passengers had the ability to rate drivers. This limitation was highly discouraging at drivers’ end since they were unable to share their side of the story in case of a bad feedback. CabStartup driver app ensures that your drivers can also rate passengers and provide feedback about them.

E-Wallet and History

Like passengers, drivers can maintain in-app wallet which keeps them updated about their day-long, week-long, and month-long earnings. They can also seek reports on previous rides with minute details including duration of ride, distance traveled, and amount of earning. This history assists drivers in settling the disputes by providing actionable evidence.

Dispatch Panel Software for Taxi Business

Apart from customer and driver apps, a comprehensive dispatch platform also includes dispatch panel. Apps are completely automated with no requirement for middleman software. However, there are unusual circumstances where dispatch panel is vital. Following are the use cases of dispatch panel.

Ensuring Security of Riders

The panel shows each vehicle in real-time unless the driver goes offline. It is mandatory for drivers to remain online while they are scheduled to pick-up and drop-off a ride. Thus, the dispatcher can monitor each ride inside geo-fence. Moreover, they can zoom-in and out to view details. Even if the rider goes offline during a pending ride, dispatcher can use micro details to investigate the case.

Auto Dispatch

Dispatch panel serves as the gateway between passenger’s request and driver’s acceptance. This gateway ensures that each ride request gets the most appropriate ride depending on one’s choice of vehicle and current location. The search request from passenger app goes to the dispatch panel which connects the request to a driver.

Cloud-based Cab Dispatch Software

The request is served at dispatch panel to prevent excessive load on passenger app. CabStartup ensures that app carries less size as compared to other ride-hailing companies. The cloud-based dispatch panel is scalable. In essence, the dispatch remains active and provides seamless services regardless of the heavy load during peak hours. Thus, both passengers and drivers get a remarkable user experience while dispatch software takes care of all the performance-intensive activities.

Dispute Settlement

Cab dispatch software is capable of sharing minute information regarding rides. This ability enables dispatch staff to settle disputes and address complaints from passengers. Although passengers and drivers get a copy of electronic invoice at the end of the ride through email and text, yet dispatch software allows settling old disputes as well. The dynamic databases provide requisite information within seconds.

Admin Panel

The business owners, executives, and managers need to know the business insights, performance shortfalls, and factors that are contributing to high efficiency. Admin panel is a complete software system which takes care of each of these activities.

Executive Information System

EIS is an information-rich dashboard depicting data visualization of various aspects of business. It shares the number of rides in a specified time period, percentage changes, consumer behavior toward marketing campaigns, and a bunch of other insightful pieces of information. EIS allows owners to evaluate performance, and hence align strategy to regional needs.

Controlling Driver Status

Administration should have the ability to block or reinstate any driver. CabStartup admin panel allows admins to perform this activity in a matter of seconds. Moreover, they can also schedule the reinstatement time. In essence, an admin can block a driver from getting rides and set the panel to automatically reinstate driver after a predetermined duration.

Redefining Fares and Geo-fence

Admin panel enables authorized staff to redefine fares of services. Although the surge pricing automatically applies when the availability of vehicles drops below a threshold, yet admins can change the base fare too. Furthermore, admin panel in this taxi service management software allows admins to modify geo-fence or sketch a new one altogether.

Commission Percentage Calculator

Commission calculation is an automated task performed by an underlying calculator. It saves the information about each ride carried by every driver and continues to calculate percentage. The interface is designed so as to provide commission of every driver separately below one’s name. The panel also provides the ability to share results with relevant drivers.

Access Hierarchy

Entire platform of taxi management software has multiple levels of data. The employees, gig workers, and executives possess different levels of access hierarchy. A driver cannot access information which is irrelevant to one’s job. This hierarchical structure of data is referred to as Access Control Layer or ACL. Multiple security layers protect the data from unauthorized access.

Sending Promotional Offers

Promotional campaigns are crucial for taxi business marketing. Admin panel enables owners to send promo and referral codes to the selection of users. The owners may select the users based on a number of factors. For instance, they can reward a frequent user with occasional discount or an abandoned user to restart using services. Referral codes are intended to target users who have never used the services before.

Selection between Dispatch Platform and Taxi Management App Clone

App clones are specific for businesses which intend to acquire either driver or passenger apps separately. These apps do not have dispatch and admin panels integrated with them. The Uber app clones are complete packages with pre-built features. Following comparison should enable you to decide which option works best for your business.

Taxi management software table

Pricing Structure for Taxi Booking and Dispatch Software

CabStartup has a diverse but crystal-clear pricing structure with no underlying charges apart from those stated. The owners targeting app clones need to share the detailed features with our experts that they intend to incorporate in apps. Thus, the price range of app clone may vary depending on the desired features. However, the owners aiming to acquire dispatch platform can use one-time enterprise solution.

CabStartup offers all four modules including passenger apps, driver apps, dispatch panel, and admin panel absolutely free for the first two drivers. Besides, you can also access every module of taxi management software free of cost for 14 days. This cost-free offer is aimed at enabling you to evaluate our platform.

Taxi management software pricing

One-Time Payment

Alternatively, you may access the entire platform by paying all at once once. The cost of one-time payment solution varies depending on the number of drivers. Mostly, businesses with 100 or more drivers use our one-time payment plan because it is more economical to them. Regardless of the plan you acquire, the platform is scalable. In essence, you can increase the number of drivers to as many as you wish.

Additional Features

Although CabStartup platform and app clone are comprehensive solutions which completely fulfill the needs of your business. However, you may choose to acquire following additional features to gain notable competitive advantage over rivals.

CabStartup pricing: Visit the website page

White Label Taxi App

CabStartup apps serve as a white label solution. In essence, you can customize the apps with your business name, logo, motto, and other descriptive details. This customization costs $200 only. As a result of this customization, you will be able to enhance the brand identity while keeping CabStartup platform as the underlying software.

Custom Payment Gateway

Braintree – a notable payment gateway and a subsidiary of PayPal – is already integrated with the platform. However, you can have a gateway of your choice as well or a custom gateway which hides the identity of payment service provider. The acquisition of custom gateway takes additional charges of $3000 while its integration with platform takes $20 only.

Brand Designing

If you are unsure about brand name, the logo, and other branding attributes, CabStartup ride-hailing experts and designers can do this job for you. Our branding professionals can develop logos, icons, app theme, color scheme, and other promotional features. The development of these branding features takes $50 only.

Do I Need Software for Taxi Business

Taxi management software is applicable in a range of business models. If you are uncertain if this platform is going to be valuable for your business or not, consider the following points.

I am an existing taxi company owner

You own a taxi company which operates on traditional practices including manual dispatch and radio call service. The acquisition and integration of CabStartup platform would significantly cut down your operational cost. Moreover, it will increase your market share with marked improvement in services.

If you have already tried a software system but it did not work well, CabStartup can eliminate the problems and pull you out of the crisis. You can use the free trial to find out why CabStartup would work notably better than any other platform provider.

I own or intend to introduce bike taxi services

The densely populated and vast urban areas are suitable for starting bike taxi or scooter sharing service. CabStartup platform does not only help bike taxi businesses but shared mobility startups as well. However, bike-pooling requires addition of few features which enable bikes to have smart devices that can be controlled via smartphone apps.

I want to launch another ride-hailing startup

Ride-hailing and other on-demand startups are gaining remarkable traction from investors. You can choose to launch a startup which targets the same market as Uber and Lyft. Our experts can assist you in crafting an effective idea or sketching the scope of a business model if you struggling in tackling these challenges.

Moreover, you can also use CabStartup platform for launching an on-demand healthcare startup with medical transportation software which enables customers to seek services of doctors and nurses at home. Similarly, a food delivery or parcel delivery service also uses the same technology with few cosmetic amendments.

Let’s Get It Started

The development of taxi management software is disrupting for some taxi companies whereas revolutionary for others. The taxi owners who utilize this software are able to increase their profit margins by manifolds. However, the ones who refuse to use it face disruption sooner or later.

CabStartup is the reason of success behind dozens of startups and taxi companies currently operating around the world. We would love to become your technology provider. If you still have questions, contact us so that one of our experts can assist you. Choose your plan right now and start evaluation of CabStartup platform by using the free trial.

By Shahrukh Satti 0 Comments

Is It Too Late to Acquire Rideshare Software App?

Many entrepreneurs fear that rideshare bubble is going to burst soon. They reason out that the number of services currently operating is already way too high to create room for another rideshare software app. However, the statistics from past two years indicate that rideshare boom is not going to end any sooner. In fact, such business will continue to emerge and sustain for decades.

This article shares market analysis and consumer behavior as studied by credible firms in the past two years. It also reveals some of the rideshare services which emerged in the past two years or less and are on their way to glory.

Consumer Behavior toward Carpool apps

Unlike the widespread belief, average fare is not the only significant factor that drives passengers’ perception about a rideshare company. A number of studies and surveys conducted in the past couple of years indicate a number of factors that rule consumers’ minds while choosing one service over another.

  1. Public reputation. The percentage of Uber riders dropped significantly when the company faced scandalous allegations regarding sexual assault. Besides, the mistreatment of drivers allowed Lyft and other rideshare companies to jump in and build a narrative around ensuring ethical practices in employing drivers. Many companies capitalize on climate change to market their electric car or scooter rideshare services.
  2. Socioeconomic conditions. There is a good proportion of rideshare consumers who would prefer economy over luxury and reputation. Although major rideshare companies have more or less same fares, yet many new startups offer promotional discounts. Uber also heavily subsidized its rides every time when it was hit by allegations. The strategy worked for them as they won back a considerable market share.
  3. Regional Dynamics. The consumer behavior also varies depending on geographical location of a rideshare service. You should not expect bike-pooling or scooter sharing idea to impress in areas where temperatures are relatively high. Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Southern California are some of the examples. Besides temperature, population density also leaves huge impact. Carpooling service would most likely incur losses when each of the riders is kilometers apart. It would only be helpful if your business offers long distance ride sharing app.

Market Analysis for Rideshare Software Apps

Private ownership of vehicles is rapidly declining as commuters are adopting rideshare model. Carpooling is not only successful for services with a small geofence. The startups offering interstate rideshare are also incredibly successful.

Reuters reports that global rideshare industry would grow at over 20% between 2019 and 2025 to reach a market size of $220.5 billion. It is notable that this figure does not include ride-hailing market. Despite the introduction of a number of ride sharing services, the gap between demand and supply is growing.

One cause of this increase is the lack of sustainable startups. Thus, the entrepreneurs with carefully crafted business model and efficient set of technology have the opportunity to acquire a part of growing market.

Recent Success Stories

Rideshare companies which started years back are not the only ones generating money. Scores of startups launched in less than two years back are raising millions. Following is a list of some startups which successfully acquired funding. It is notable that these are only a fraction of instances.

Dott


Launched in late 2018, Dott managed to raise $56.6 million across two funding rounds in less than a year. The startup provides an app for dockless electric scooters. It is notable that the company is based in Amsterdam – the city known for excessive use of bikes.

The success of bike highlights the significance of location. This startup might not be as successful as it is in The Netherlands. Young entrepreneurs need to ensure that they perform demographic analysis to identify interests of local population.

Hitch


Many bikeshare startups tried to win a strong consumer-base in Texas but each of those were unwise investments. In the scorching Texas heat, passengers would rarely use bikes. Hitch is providing carpooling for relatively large distances in Texas. The startup offers intercity and inter-county travels.

The first and only funding round raised $0.84 million for the startup since its inception in 2018. This initial success of Hitch rises from its business model which enables passengers to travel between Austin and Houston for $25.

Bird


It is highly rare to find a startup that attains unicorn valuation in less than a year. Electric scooter rideshare startup Bird has done it across four funding rounds. The service was launched in Santa Monica in 2017 and quickly gained a considerable passenger-base. By June 2018, it valued at $2 billion.

One of the top reasons for Bird’s success is its environment friendly narrative. The company has become an apple of regulator’s eyes in California. Its push for biodiversity preservation is selling successfully. Recently, Bird wholly acquired Scoot Networks.

Alto


In a short span of less a year, this Dallas -based on-demand startup raised $14.5 million funding including a Series A round. The company started operations shortly after Uber and Lyft returned from a ban.

It was widely believed that the startup would not be able to survive in presence of rideshare giants. However, it did survive and managed to gain a decent proportion of market share as well.

One factor that helped Alto was its dedicated fleet of vehicles and full-time employment. While other ride-hailing companies face criticism for mistreatment of gig workers, Alto’s fulltime employment boosted its reputation. Moreover, the riders in Alto can customize traveling vehicle experience with multiple options.

How to Start a Rideshare Program?

Following factors are most crucial to start a successful rideshare startup.

  1. Market and consumer analysis for intended region.
  2. A comprehensive business model.
  3. User-friendly interfaces of driver and passenger apps.
  4. Highly fault-tolerant system with unparalleled speeds.
  5. Effective digital marketing with special emphasis to mobile marketing.
  6. The ability of platform to scale up with time for more features and capacity.
  7. Efficient quality assurance teams for occasional audits.

CabStartup experts can help you launch rideshare services with rideshare software app for passengers as well as drivers. Moreover, our cloud-based platform also includes dispatch panel and administration panel. Start our 14 days-long trial for 14 days right now.

By Shahrukh Satti 0 Comments

How to Choose the Best Taxi App Development Company

Building a taxi business is often a once-in-a-life ambition for entrepreneurs. While the success can lead to a remarkable business, failure can discourages the entrepreneurs keeping them from making ambitious investment. Unfortunately, the failure rate is excessively high because most of the taxi app developers have inefficient software systems.

This article emphasizes the approach to choose taxi app developer by assessing product utilization and efficiency. Besides, it also reveals the role of experience of working with various ride-hailing industries in the growth of a developer. Finally, it shares the unethical pricing strategies followed in the industry before sharing the pricing structure of CabStartup.

Taxi Application Product Utilization

The taxi and ride-hailing businesses have evolved since 2007 to reach the current state with a range of features. The intense state of competition makes some of the features indispensable. There is a considerable probability that the business would fail to grab even the slightest share in market without incorporation of these essential features listed below.

  • Unique Accounts of Drivers and Passengers
  • Real-time Tracking along with ETA
  • Monitoring through Admin Panel
  • Proximity checks for Drivers
  • Multiple Payment Options
  • In-app Communication
  • Dashboards for Business Analytics
  • Instant Digital Invoices

Read details: CabStartup Product Features

Apart from these essential features, some unique features help you in standing out of the crowd and outperforming the competitors. CabStartup introduced following set of unique features which are enabling startups and taxi companies in topping the charts of ride-hailing market share.

  • Automation in Taxi Dispatching
  • Driver and Passenger In-app Wallet
  • Referral and Promo Campaigns
  • Payment Gateway Integration
  • Network Strength
  • Access Control Level (ACL)
  • Carpooling or Ridesharing
  • Developing Brand Identity

CabStartup provides each of these must-have as well as optional features across four software systems including Driver App, Passenger App, Taxi Dispatch Software, and Admin Panel.

Taxi application Product Efficiency

While the range of features defines the utilization of a product, the efficiency of platform reflects its performance. CabStartup offers a number of performance boosters which collectively ensure an outstanding efficiency.

Cloud-based Platform

The cloud hosted on best servers with zero down time ensures that the service never slows down regardless of the number of requests. The engineers regularly test our platform with varying degrees of workloads. These tests confirm that the platform is able to process hundreds of requests per second. It is also scalable so that the capacity can be augmented with increasing number of users.

Besides stability, CabStartup cloud-based taxi mobile app software also provides economic benefits. The companies do not have to necessarily acquire entire suite. Instead, many small businesses are utilizing it for very limited number of drivers. The platform is free for two drivers as the charges are applicable from third driver or more.

Route Planning and Optimization

Regardless of how experienced a driver could be in taxi industry, one must have GPS-powered route optimization. The drivers might know the best routes in usual circumstances. However, there are times when some roads face extraordinary and unexpected blockades. Efficient route optimization software aids big time in such situations.

CabStartup route planner shares information about traffic volume on various roads leading to destinations as well as road closure. It also provides predictive analysis on traffic situation with high precision so that drivers can plan route ahead of time.

It is notable Uber clone apps are strictly-built with a fixed number of features. Many developers offering Uber clone app development face the inability of scaling up the app.

Friendly Interface and User Experience

Most of the users of taxi app platform are unaware of the technical details. It is a commonly occurring problem where an app with fancy interface and a bunch of animations make it tough for users to achieve what they are trying to accomplish with this app. Thus, the app needs to right balance between detailing animations and enhancing user experience.

CabStartup platform ensures that the users have a seamless experience working with it. The driver and passenger apps have extensive interfaces with comfortable navigation. If you intend to rebrand the app, our designers assist in developing the logo and color scheme which is pleasant to the eyes of users.

Taxi App Development for Various Industries

Taxi and ride-hailing industry have multiple use cases. Apart from yellow taxis, black cabs and SUVs, the industry offers bike taxi, private drivers, and paratransit as well. Moreover, three-wheelers, minivans for shuttle services, and water taxis are also gaining popularity.

One of the signs of top taxi app development companies is their experience of working with this wide range of use cases. The experience of working on different business models provides the exposure and insights into the industry.

Moreover, each of these cases poses challenges. CabStartup has the privilege of working on each of the mentioned use cases. The remarkable success rate enabled us to drift on to the top of the industry.

Unambiguous Pricing Model

Many taxi booking app development companies share a vague pricing model when dealing with clients. This strategy allows them to charge massively as the project progresses. While this is unethical practice, it also increases the probability of failure when entrepreneur is facing a financial crunch.

CabStartup has a crystal-clear pricing structure. You can get it through one-time payment. CabStartup does not charge for the first two drivers. The variation in price depends on the size of your fleet and number of additional features that you aim to incorporate.

You can have a redesign of apps including app name, description and logo for $200 to build your unique recognition. The cost of payment gateway integration and customization is $3000 and $20, respectively. Besides, $50 for brand identity can have you attain a unique brand. Each of these figures is one-time payment.

CabStartup offers its clients to test the platform before acquiring it. Access our complete technology suite today for 14 days-long trial.

By Shahrukh Satti 0 Comments

Best Uber Clone Script for Taxi Business Owners

Every business depends on proper research about the market, product, and competitors, target audience and their presence. A detailed study of all these things plays a major role in your success. In the taxi business, research about your competitors, marketing strategies, and knowledge about customer behavior can help you to build an effective business strategy.

Are you running a taxi business and looking for the best Uber clone script to make your business successful? If so, then you are at the right place. In this blog, we are going to discuss the best Uber clone for your taxi business and its features to grow your business successfully.

Cab Startup taxi dispatch solution.

CabStartup Uber clone is up to the latest industry standards. It offers
· Reliable coding standards
· Attractive UI/UX design
· Additional Unique Features
· 24/7 full technical support until your taxi app becomes live
· Affordable price plans
· Get your app under your Brand Name and Logo.

App under Your Brand Name and Logo:

CabStartup taxi app provides app under your brand name and logo. Passenger app, driver app, admin panel and dispatcher panel are based on your brand color or preferences.

24/7 Technical Support until the taxi app launch:

After signing the contract, a dedicated team will be working with you for app development completion as well as customer support services to guide you effectively in app submission and approval process in Google and Apple play store.

Affordable Price Plans:

CabStartup cloud-based taxi dispatch solution is suitable for small, medium, and large sized companies. We understand your business and suggest the most suitable package for your business needs. We provide:
· Passenger Android app
· Driver Android app
· Passenger IOS App
· Driver IOS app
· Admin panel
· Dispatcher panel
We don’t compromise on quality and our standards that’s why we always upgrade our taxi software to the latest versions and update with exclusive features.

In today’s world, everyone wants to be number 1 which creates a lot of competition to provide outclass software solution and services. Being number 1 takes a lot of time, dedication, and hard work. Below are some significant ideas to stand out from the competition.

CabStartup Features:

CabStartup features are distinctive which makes it stand out from other competitors with similar platforms. Here are some of the interactive features of CabStartup:

Auto Dispatching:

It is a simple, fast and enticing booking software for your clients online that track drivers in real time, fairly distribute jobs, track vehicle route and provides updated reports.

Web bookings:

Allows booking taxi online with our booking system. It is a user-friendly system that helps cab companies to make their business stronger and increase their revenue.

Scheduled bookings:

A feature of scheduled bookings allows to schedule a ride in nearly all cities where CabStartup is available.

Referral Code:

In order for your business to capture overall market share, our package offers you a feature of referral program in which passengers can invite and earn. Users can send invitations to their friends using email, SMS and social media.

Access Control level:

You can assign a different access level to your users. For example, you can allow users to view only driver related information or passenger related information. You can control all these access from your admin panel.

Wallet Feature:

Driver Wallet:

The driver can know how much amount he has in his wallet that he has to pay to admin when that amount is paid it will automatically be deducted from his wallet.

Passenger Wallet:

Wallet for the passenger, where users’ credit will be stored which he/she will be able to use for service requests in the future. Admin will also be able to add or deduct the passenger’s wallet. Passengers would be able to get the updated status if they pay more than the fare that was calculated for the ride.

Premium Support:

The feature of premium support allows the account manager to stay in touch with you and rectify any issue and keep the team aligned as well. As a premium client, your issues will be given highest priority and your issues will be resolved in the minimum time possible.

Geo-Fencing:

Geo-Fencing is a location-based service that allows business owners to send relevant messages to smartphone users who enter a pre-defined geographical area. It allows administrators to create a virtual barrier around a location on a map. CabStartup has adopted geofencing feature by setting up a geofence around the location of a passenger’s pickup, which when breached by the driver, automatically alerts the passenger via SMS.

Route Optimization:

The hired driver would be able to view a route from his current location to the pickup location of the passenger and after pickup can also view the route to reach the drop-off location from the pickup spot. The driver will be able to view navigation using Google Maps.

Payment Integration:

Master card, visa card, Braintree and Paypal are payment integration options for availing CabStartup taxi services.

Access Control:

Business owners will have complete access to advanced features like access control levels, which allow business owners to create accounts for your employees like finance manager, operations manager, business manager, and other people. You can allocate privileges to them, which means that you’ll define which pages/actions of admin they can access and which pages/actions they can’t access.

Promo Codes:

Many new startups are using promo codes and free trials to attract users to use their platforms. It is an exciting feature available in the CabStartup solution. In the admin panel menu, you will be able to see the ‘Promos’ option. If you click on it a new page will open, which will allow to see all the previously created promo codes and their details in a table and you would also be able to add a new promo.
As an admin, you would be able to launch three types of promos i.e. Fixed Price Discount Promo, Percentage Discount Promo, and Free Ride Promo.

Send Notifications:

In the admin panel, there is an option of sending notifications as there would be situations in which you would like to send a notification to a group of app users, passengers or drivers.

Reports:

It allows you to generate reports of passengers, drivers, trips, and payments. You would be able to filter out the data of passengers, drivers, trips, and payments by mentioning the dates and whether you need a report for active or inactive users. Trip-related reports can also be filtered based on the trip status that might include canceled, in progress, missed, or completed. All the generated reports can also be exported to excel.

Advanced Settings:

In the admin panel, you can apply settings according to your needs, like: you can set the Language of the platform (English, French, Spanish), Currency, Date Format, Distance Unit (KM, Mile), Time Zone, Payment Gateway (Braintree, Stripe, Conekta), Support Contacts (Email, Phone Number) and most importantly the Fare Calculation Formula.

Pickup /Drop off:

Passengers can select a pickup point from the search bar and select the desired location from the list. A passenger also has the option to choose a pickup location from Nearby, Recent, Airport, Train Stations, and hotels.

Fare Estimate:

The passenger can review estimated trip fare by providing pick up and drop off locations. The passenger can edit drop off, choose car type to view the estimated fare and can also generate the request from this screen.

Excellency in services matters a lot in business success. Providing excellent service plays a crucial role in any business. Moreover, keeping an eye on your business and competitors and on the latest tech updates in your business is mandatory for your business success. Now, most of the taxi businesses are using online cloud-based taxi dispatch solution for their business. If you want to get a reliable solution, Sign up today! You can get a 14-day free trial.

By Syedah Mahtaj 0 Comments

The Components of Taxi Hailing App Platform

The taxi application platform of CabStartup has evolved over the time. Working with clients from various industries enabled us to constantly update the platform with new features and performance boosters. The platform primarily consists of four components. Startup enthusiasts and taxi business owners may choose to acquire entire taxi hailing app platform or a part of it.

Moreover, they can access cloud-based model through one-time payment. Following are the four components of CabStartup.

Taxi Hailing App for Drivers

The purpose of building the app for drivers carried the aim of rightful distribution of vehicles in entire operational region. Prior to this app, some areas in a region had more vehicles than demand whereas other areas lacked the number of vehicles. This uneven distribution did not only reduce the revenue but also increased cost of operations.

Driver app reveals the number of vehicles in a vicinity to each driver. Besides, the app also indicates surge pricing as a factor of demand. Apart from these features, the app provides route optimization, in-app wallet, and unique profiles for each driver.

Taxi Booking App for Passengers

The passengers could book a ride through phone call and schedule the pickup at their doorstep even before the existence of passenger app. However, CabStartup enabled taxi companies to find the estimated arrival time through proximity feature before scheduling. Moreover, the passengers can track the vehicle in real-time.

Apart from tracking the approaching vehicle, customers can also share the real-time location with any number of their contacts. This feature provides security satisfaction to passengers once they are onboard. Besides, the app offers quick scheduling by suggesting users about the recently visited locations. Choosing from recent locations ensures booking in only two taps.

Assistance to Dispatch Staff

The passengers and drivers connect and schedule rides directly with their respective apps. However, the presence of dispatch panel ensures monitoring and surveillance of each ride. This Taxi Dispatch Panel shares real-time as well as historical data for each ride. Real-time data provides monitoring while historical data is essential to resolve disputes.

The panel also ensures that each passenger gets the most suitable driver. This suitability parameter is measured in proximity of driver, selected ride type, and driver’s consent. Dispatch software is capable of processing hundreds of requests per second. Moreover, the efficient cloud-based platform ensures to completely eliminate downtime.

Insightful Admin Panel

Knowing the statistics about periodic growth is crucial for business leaders. CabStartup platform offers Taxi Admin Panel which provides tools for data analytics. The tools do not require technical expertise as multiple layers of abstraction ensure easy interface while hiding technical details. Moreover, this panel included in ride hailing app platform features insightful dashboards which visualize performance stats in the form of dynamic graphs, charts, and tables.

Administrative access enables the admins to search registered drivers and vehicles, set geofencing, and offer promo codes. Besides, they can redefine access to various features by modifying access control layer.

Test Our Taxi Hailing App Platform Right Now

The ride hailing companies including startups as well as taxi services are successfully utilizing CabStartup for their business. The growth attained by each of the companies with our taxi application indicates the efficiency. Most of these success stories had struggling past until incorporated CabStartup.

We would love to become your technology provider as well. Start the free trial for our software today.

By Shahrukh Satti 0 Comments

Enabling Taxi Drivers to Attract Customers in Uber Era

The advent of Uber and similar services has apparently left intensely bad impact on taxi industry. The market share of Uber and Lyft in ground transportation is over 72%, as reported by Certify. Rest of the share does not only include taxi services but car rental and other rideshare services too. In the market currently dominated by Uber and Lyft, the taxi business owners can still attract customers outperforming on-demand rivals.

Implementation of following strategies ensures reoccupation of a significant percentage of market share in any region.

Execute Taxi Marketing Ideas

Marketing is the single most crucial aspect in any business of the current times. It enables your potential customers to understand your business and how would it assist them. While there is a range of practices that taxi business owners can employ, cultural integration and publicizing the fulfillment of social responsibilities are significant ones.

Research indicates that passengers are more likely to seek services from a business which integrates with native cultures. Religious and traditional festivals famous in a region are vital occasions for business branding. Although the core branding including logo and color scheme remains consistent, yet slight modification in logo for temporary period works wonders.

Current business landscape presents multiple opportunities to fulfill social responsibilities without spending excessive money. For instance, some of the taxi and ride hailing services broadcast their efforts for mitigation of climate change threat while others use social media to create awareness regarding traffic rules. These might only be small steps but work well as successful marketing strategies.

Identify Consumer Behavior

Enabling your customers to know you does half the job. The other half of marketing rests with your knowledge about the potential customers. What can you do to determine the challenges that your customers currently face? Besides, is there a way to evenly distribute your taxi fleet so that each region gets the number of taxis corresponding to the demand?

Consumer behavior analysis enables you to address both challenges along with other taxi business requirements. It is notable that this analysis is performed using the historical data of previous rides. Each of the past rides reveals the magnitude of demand in various areas and trends of customers toward taxi and public transport.
In essence, you need to offer need-based operations depending on the prevalent trends. However, be sure that the trends change over the time as you execute marketing campaigns.

Incorporate On-demand Taxi Services

You do not need to entirely replicate Uber’s business model to incorporate on-demand taxi services. Instead, a passenger side app would be enough to augment taxi business. The app for driver along with dispatch panel would ensure a remarkable growth. Nevertheless, passenger app alone also creates notable difference.

A number of taxi services worked with CabStartup to incorporate on-demand technology and the results were incredible. For instance, Georgia-based Alianza Taxi used CabStartup platform and attained a significant increase in profit margins. Freddy Drive, Go Wey, T Transit, and Insta Drive are some of the other success stories reflecting innovation in taxi services.

Increase Online Presence

Most of the customers would not even know if your company existed if it does not have an online presence. Developing a website offers no assistance as long as the website is not discoverable. In essence, thousands of search results appear when a customer makes an online query on search engines like Google. Your website would not appear in top results if it is not optimized as per the rules of engines.

Beside search engine optimized website, you also need to have an extensive social media marketing (SMM) strategy. It is highly unlikely that an individual born in 1990 or later is inactive on every major social network. Social media provides a platform to publicize your marketing and branding campaigns.

Get Started Today

Taxi business requirements vary from one region to another. However, the aforementioned strategies are region-independent and ensure remarkable expansion in business. Apart from being promising, these strategies are cost-effective too. The cost to benefit ratio is incredibly low as the return on investment is remarkable. We invite you to use our platform without any charges for as many as 14 days.

By Shahrukh Satti 0 Comments

Sustainable Marketing Strategy for Taxi Services

Incorporating an unparalleled software infrastructure is essential for taxi business. However, it is not all that is required. The business, regardless of its scale, requires an extensive marketing strategy as well. This article explaining marketing strategy for taxi services is a continuation of one of the previous articles which shares market research, top ideas, and requirements of an on-demand taxi services platform.

    1. Business Branding

    It is unwise to even think of a taxi marketing strategy that does not involve branding. The design of brand logo and coloring scheme for mobile app should be unique and attractive. People tend to learn quickly with visual art. Thus, graphic designing should be immaculate.

    The branding campaign should also ensure cultural integration. Consumers should perceive the business as a local one. Using the native language and celebrating the native festivals are two of the most effective ways to integrate local cultures. Consumers tend to acquire services more frequently from businesses which respect and fete local cultural diversity.

    2. Business Reputation

    Consumers evaluate reputation of a taxi company by reviews and past events before seeking the service. Besides, the reputation in view of regulators is also crucial. Any taxi startup or established company needs to ensure that they comply with licensing requirements. A startup may manage to attain profits for a brief time despite evading taxes and avoiding licensing. However, it will incur more losses in the long run.

    Consumer inclusivity is another area which enhances reputation. You need to incorporate services for disabled and special people too. Besides, be sure to treat each customer equally regardless of ethnic, religious, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Fulfilling these social responsibilities will lift the value of company.

    3. Building Public Relations

    The disputes between passengers and ride-hailing companies are occurring frequently. You must develop a comprehensive public relations strategy which addresses complaints, queries, and suggestions from customers in considerably small time. Besides email and call, real-time messaging facility is also vital.

    Promotional discounts and referral codes are also among the top taxi marketing ideas to build public relations. These discounts do not affect the profit margin significantly because the volume of ride requests rises during the promotion period.

    Referral codes increases the consumer-base as a business is able to reach more customers with it. Thus, promos and referral codes work for passengers as well as service providers.

    4. Visibility over the Web

    Over 2.5 billion smartphone users apart from billions of other web users provide a huge stage for marketing. Thus, you need to ensure that the company makes frequent appearances in search engines. While paid advertisement is an option for successful taxi business model, it is not essential. A robust inbound and outbound marketing campaign can prevent paid advertisement.

The mobile-first approach in digital marketing is gaining momentum since most of the users are likely to come across your business through surfing on smartphone. Mobile marketing is significantly different from desktop based computers or laptops. The difference of screen resolution and sizes affect the ranking on search engines.

CabStartup provides you a comprehensive and customizable taxi software platform. We can rebrand it as per your needs and take care of its marketing as well. Get hands on the system for free to test it.

By Shahrukh Satti 0 Comments

Cargo Bikes Redefine Urban Delivery and Transportation Service

The logistics and delivery industry has never seen an evolutionary phase as significant as today. It is not only the business model that is changing but the infrastructure required to execute that model is updating as well. As on-demand delivery startups are gaining traction amongst entrepreneurs and consumers alike, cargo bike manufacturers are coming up with innovative ideas to ensure that service providers can attain maximum profits.

Are you starting a bike delivery service or aiming to start one? While we can assist you in developing software infrastructure including mobile apps and dispatch panels, you should consider following types of innovative cargo bikes. These rides can save you a good amount of money and bring incredible profits in the process.

Cargo Bikes for On-demand Bike Delivery Service

One of the chief reasons for utilization of cargo bikes is the collective willingness toward mitigation of climate change. The Netherlands leads the world with 1.3 bicycles per citizen. Moreover, the Dutch perform 26% of their total trips on bicycles. Other European states are also showing promise as indicated below.

Cargo Bikes

These statistics from 2018 indicate 5.7% increase in the number of bike sales from 2017 suggesting an impressive growth. Netherlands collectively saves 3.8 million hours by opting cycles over cars. Following are some of the cargo bikes most used for on-demand delivery, cargo, and kid transportation.

Long-tail bikes

The rear end of these bikes is an extended one to create room for cargo boxes. Riders reveal that riding experience is similar to a usual bike when rear end is mounted with load. Although these bikes can also be used for children transportation, yet many experts argue that it is more convenient for riders when children are sitting in front instead of behind them.

Besides, these bikes should be the first choice for cargo because they are very easy to move around since the weight acts at the rear end. They should be your choice particularly when load is more than the amount to be carried easily on a conventional two wheeler. For instance, the agents of on-demand grocery delivery can utilize them effectively. However, experts disapprove their utilization to transport toddlers.

Bakfietsen

These bikes are in sharp contrast to long-tail ones. Instead of rear extension, they have space in front for a mounted cargo box. You can customize these bikes as per your business needs. For instance, if you are running business for school children transportation, the space can be utilized for fixed seats. Seats mounted in front are good enough for toddlers as well because the jerk effect is lesser as compared to long-tail.

Although front-mounted bikes work for child transportation as well as cargo and delivery services, yet they are difficult to pedal around when box is filled. The load increases the weight in front of the rider, hence making it tougher to push ahead.

Electric bikes

Electric bikes address the challenge posed by front-mounted bikes. The rider does not have to pedal all the way long. Instead, electric batteries do the job. Since the weight is much lesser than an electric car, the electric bikes consume far less charging. Therefore, electric bike delivery service is gaining massive attraction from investors.

However, the convenience comes at a price – rider has to tradeoff high cost of purchase and maintenance with comfort. Europe and North America are striving for years to keep the cost of electric vehicles as low as possible. The decision to acquire electric bikes or mechanical ones depends on your budget.

Multipurpose Trikes

The aim of trikes is to improve stability since the two wheels are placed in front and one on the rear. This mechanism lowers the center of gravity providing more balance to the vehicle. Besides, the rider can take care of kids as well since the seats are suspended ahead of handle in-between the two front wheels.

Trikes are not only the top choice for family use but for short distance transportation of children as well. Recently, trikes have attained notable gains in bike food delivery service.

Utilization in On-demand Industry

Research conducted by CycleLogistics – an EU-sponsored project reveals that the number of commercial delivery trips can be reduced by up to 25% by replacing minivans with cargo bikes. Moreover, cargo bikes can perform 31% of all commercial trips currently performed by vans. A considerable part of 69% of private trips accounts for bike sharing apps. 21% of these commercial trips include services and delivery. Following chart visualizes these statistics.

Cargo Bikes Delivery Service

Europe loses over $271 billion annually to traffic congestion. Bikes do not only reduce congestion but also prevent excessive carbon footprint. This is significant from business perspective as well. Delivery and cargo service providers can save billions of dollars by saving time and cost of operations. Besides, they can also improve corporate reputation by providing fulfilling their corporate social responsibility of preserving biodiversity.

Service providers – particularly on-demand delivery, logistics, and cargo operators – in Europe are adopting cargo bikes. The result is an incredible increase in margin of profits. North America is also making impressive progress with growth in some urban areas as rapid as Western Europe and Scandinavia.

On-demand Dispatch Technology

The choice of bikes has to do with the cost of procuring hardware infrastructure for business. However, for the smooth-running of operations with high performance and seamless user experience, the efficiency of software infrastructure is crucial. This is where CabStartup assists you.

Our platform enables you to acquire Uber-like apps for riders and passengers. Moreover, it includes dispatch and monitoring panels as well. Dispatch panel provides a bridge to connect customers with service providers whereas monitoring dashboard shares real-time map and descriptive information about past, ongoing, and pending requests.

Customers can find out the nearest bikes and estimated arrival time in case one requests a service. Driver apps are aided with route optimization technology which provides the most suitable path to reach destination.

Cargo bikes make a remarkable duo with CabStartup on-demand software suite for bike delivery service. Be sure to test our software right now because it does not cost you a cent. Let’s grow together.

By Shahrukh Satti 0 Comments

Online Taxi Services in Nepal are All Set to Take-off

On-demand taxi business is growing like anything in South Asia owing to its huge markets. This region with highest population density in the world is one of the favorite destinations of giant ride-hailing companies including Uber, Ola, and Grab among others. Until two years back, Nepal was lagging behind the entire region in introducing a global company or a local ride-hailing startup. Nevertheless, the country has made significant gains in the past two years. Nepal online taxi services are starting to gain firm ground.

Although the country is still waiting for the arrival of Uber or another globally-known company, yet the current scenario is becoming ideal for entrepreneurial activities.

Traditional Taxi Business in Nepal

The decades-old transportation system in the country discouraged investors in the past to introduce ride-hailing services. The neighboring countries started to offer alternatives to conventional taxi services in India and Bangladesh. Although these countries also faced challenges in the beginning, yet they managed to overcome them.

Nepal took considerably longer to address these challenges. The primary reason was the strength of the country’s infamous taxi associations. These associations have deep roots in various influential sectors in governmental departments. Thus, they have managed to successfully resist the advent of rideshare services in the past.

Nepalese government made it mandatory for taxi owners to install digital meters years back. However, the drivers in most areas refuse to run meters and force passengers to pay a prefixed price. Nepal Meter Taxi Association also tried to launch multiple failed attempts at introducing online taxi services.

Market Growth and Improving Business Environment

The native population of Kathmandu alone is over a million whereas the country’s total population crossed 30 million. The number of international tourists traveling to this roof of the world is well above a million with unofficial statistics putting the number at approximately 1.7 million. The official statistics compiled in 2017 confirm that 9,40,218 international tourists reached Nepal in 2016.

Nepal witnesses remarkable influx of local and international tourists during some parts of the year. The stats indicate that the already high demand attains exponential growth during famous religious festivals. The official stats reveal that the purpose of 15% of tourists to visit this country is pilgrimage apart from 70% for holiday and pleasure. This collective 85% of tourist-base frequently requires taxis.

Despite these significant numbers, the country could neither introduce an efficient public transport system nor ride-hailing services until 2016. Travelers often surrender to high fares from local taxi drivers. Therefore, online taxi booking system similar to Uber will receive an impressive response.

The Advent of Rideshare Business

The revolutionary steps from government and growing confidence of investors enabled the introduction of ridesharing services. Tootle is arguably the first on-demand service operating in Nepal. It offers motorbikes and scooters only. The foundation of Tootle in 2016 was followed by a number of entrepreneurs investing in this sector. Consequently, businesses like Onver Smart Taxi, Sarathi, and Kawa Rides emerged. Although the scale of business is very small as compared to regional leaders including Ola and Uber, yet these startups are growing by leaps and bounds.

The arrival of Pathao – a Bangladesh-based ride-hailing startup – indicates that businesspersons outside Nepal are also taking keen interest. Despite the operations of multiple startups, the demand remains far higher than supply because small-scaled businesses are insufficient to meet a demand of hundreds of thousands of rides a day.

Addressing the Challenges

The nascent ride-hailing industry in Nepal has managed to address multiple challenges in a short span of two years. A number of challenges threatened the industry in the beginning.

    1. Government disallowed use of private vehicles for public transport. The government had strong backing from taxi associations of the country. The limitation still stands but a round of legislations and development of a regulatory framework ensures flexibility. Now, the registration of vehicle with ridesharing service is easier and cheaper. Administration encourages business community to invest in this sector to tackle the longstanding issue of public transport.

    2. The spread of internet services in Nepal is quite recent. Until 2011, only 9% of Nepalese had internet access. Thus, most people remained unaware of ride-hailing service operations in the world. Nevertheless, the private-public partnership in the past couple of years proved vital. Official figures put the current percentage of internet users at 78%. Thus, people are rapidly getting familiarized with ride-hailing.

    3. Nepal, in the past, has failed to improve its corporate structure. Thus, it lied lowly in the globally accepted index demonstrating ease of doing business. Nevertheless, the recent rise of startups in Nepal and increasing entrepreneurial interest indicates that corporate sector is rapidly attaining stability. Since the per capita income is relatively smaller but consumer demand is bigger, an on-demand taxi or bike business is likely to gain quick traction.

    4. Law and order was also a problem which kept investors away. However, Nepal has attained a remarkable progress in this sector as well since earthquake rocked the country in 2015. The reestablishment plan of urban and rural areas included improvement in security infrastructure. Consequently, the country is doing significantly better today than four years back.

Get Ride-hailing Software for Free

CabStartup is a platform which enables on-demand ride-hailing startups to acquire complete technology suite including apps for drivers and passengers and a dispatch panel including admin module. The driver and passenger side mobile apps offer a range of features including distinct profiles, in-app wallet, route optimization, real-time navigation, among others.

Dispatch and admin panel offers data analytics with comprehensive visualization dashboards. The AI-powered software enables the passengers to access the most suitable vehicle depending on passenger’s location and selection of ride.
You can fill the void of an appropriate ride-hailing service by creating a startup like Uber in Nepal. Experience CabStartup platform for free right now to test its efficacy.

By Shahrukh Satti 0 Comments

How to Start a Taxi Business from Scratch to Summit

Most of the businesses from a century back no longer exist. Taxi industry is one of the businesses which did not only survive but continues to prosper. It is undeniable that technologies over the time have made a number of updates to taxi industry, but the foundation of such businesses remained same. As taxi companies are growing unceasingly, new entrepreneurs are facing a range of challenges. Thus, most of them are curious to find about how to start a taxi business.

This article coupled with the next one precisely presents the secrets of starting a successful taxi business. Apart from market analysis and top taxi business ideas, it also shares brief information about CabStartup platform.

Get to know about features of CabStartup ride-hailing solution

Market Research and Consumer demand

Before embarking on the campaign for identifying taxi business requirements, you need to determine if your chosen location requires a taxi business at all. A market already abundant with taxi companies needs massive initial investment to outrank existing businesses.

To avoid excessive capital inflow, one workaround is to identify the shortcomings of existing businesses and provide a solution to them. For instance, Via rideshare started in 2012 when Uber was already ruling the major US cities. However, Via managed to seize a part of market share by providing the solution to relatively higher fares. The only tradeoff was the fact that passengers traveling to the same locality had to travel together.

Identification of appropriate taxi business model requires assessing consumer demand. A market saturated with taxi companies may still be a decent choice if your business idea presents a unique feature that addresses challenges of passengers.

Competitor analysis is also essential in market research. This analysis is not an alternative to determining consumer behavior but a supplement to it. Competitors do not only enable you to highlight loopholes in the local taxi industry but also allow learning from their success.

Filtering the taxi business ideas

Evaluation of markets, assessment of consumers, and identification of competitors’ limitations allow you to make a list of ideas and filter the most effective ones out of them. Some of the most notable ideas emerged in recent times include:

Shared taxi or carpooling

Low-income regions are not the only ones effective enough for carpooling. The metropolitans including Chicago, New York City and Los Angeles are also proving to be productive grounds. One significant reason is the fact that passengers can divide costs without having to acquire public transit systems.

Carpooling is also noteworthy because governments around the world are encouraging it to reduce traffic volume and preserve biodiversity. Research confirms that rideshare businesses are likely to pass through registration and licensing stages far quicker than traditional taxi companies.

Venture capitalists as well as angel investors are more inclined to fund businesses aiming shared mobility model. Thus, shared taxis are likely to secure a significant capital influx at the earliest stages.

Taxi for Dedicated Customers

Instead of waiting for passengers to reach your driver and book a ride, a dedicated customer-base is a considerable option. School and college buses usually cover only a selection of routes. A large number of students require a ride to reach one of the pickup points. Dedicated rides can fill up this void by moving students between their residence and bus pickup points.

Similarly, you may also provide dedicated services to corporate and public sector employees. Another model is to offer services for dropping and picking passengers from airports. This service does not require fixed customer base. However, airport location remains fixed.

One of the decisions to take prior to starting a taxi business is to determine whether to keep a fleet or not. Most taxi companies operating in US metropolitans own vehicles. However, on-demand apps including Uber and Lyft are register vehicles from private owners. Although both models have pros and cons, yet latter is relatively better. It requires sharing profit with vehicle owners in return of prevention of purchase and maintenance costs.

Taxi Dispatch software

It is highly unwise to adopt decades old taxi strategies when on-demand taxi apps are making rounds even in the least developed countries. Current business requirements push entrepreneurs to take services at consumers’ doorstep instead of forcing consumers to perform most of the work. Entrepreneurs sticking to traditional services end up in suffering from business failure.

While going back to old-school taxi strategy is out of question, the choice to select the features of dispatch software remains with you. Some on-demand ride-hailing companies including Uber provide exclusive vehicles as well as carpooling while others like Via offer specific services only.

You can decide to broaden the scope as much as the budget allows, but need to ensure that the app includes features which are essential for on-demand taxi business. CabStartup platform provides a number of pre-integrated features for entrepreneurs who rebrand our platform as one of their businesses.

Some of the most notable features of this platform include following

App for passengers: This app enables customers to make a profile, view the data of their past, ongoing and upcoming rides, and pay via one of the payment options.

App for drivers: Each driver can have a unique profile as well with a range of features including ride acceptance and cancellation, communication with scheduled passenger and information regarding earnings of the day, week, and month.

Admin and Dispatch Panel: Although software is able to automatically connect passengers with the nearest drivers, yet admin panel allows surveillance. Administrators can also update preferences depending on customer’s urgency. Dispatch panel enables the platform to dispatch the most suitable taxi for requesting individual. The suitability depends on customer’s location, type of requested service, and driver’s consent.

Route Optimization: AI-based route planning considers aspects including traffic volume on various roads, distance to reach destination, and quality of roads on each route.

Data Analytics: Any on-demand business requires extensive data analysis techniques to determine growth over time. An efficient set of techniques would share the high-performing areas as well as those failing to perform up to the mark.

Process Automation: In a traditional setting, a customer would call taxi company to schedule rides, share feedback, lodge complaints. The admin and other staff members would perform these tasks manually. However, CabStartup platform automates these tasks and promises to perform them in negligible time with remarkable efficiency as compared to humans.

One of the upcoming articles shares details on marketing of taxi business. You would love to experience our platform. Get on-board to get the free trial version today.

By Shahrukh Satti 0 Comments

A guide to Launching Bike-Sharing Services Startup

The transportation network in metropolitans mostly comprises public transit coupled with ride-hailing services. However, this combination is inadequate to fulfill the needs of a considerable proportion of commuters. Many commuters need to travel a distance which is too short to book a taxi, Uber, or Lyft and too long to walk all the way. The latter is often the case when passengers offload from a public bus. Bike-sharing services fill this void effectively.

The startups offering bike-sharing app are more likely to remain successful by acquiring sponsorship and assistance in regulations from governments. Public and environmental activists also support such businesses. With such an impressive amount of assistance, bike share business tends to obtain funding comfortably.

Prerequisites to Dockless Bike Share Business

The selection of a business model varies depending on the socioeconomic and geographic conditions of a region. For instance, a relatively greater per capita income and purchasing power indicate that people are capable of owning vehicles and would be less likely to travel by on-demand bikes.

However, improved socioeconomic situations do not necessarily result in people owning vehicles. Colleges and universities provide an example. Bike taxi companies ensure to offer services in educational institutes whose area is widespread. Students find it feasible to acquire a shared bike to move between various departments of an institute.

Geographic conditions also affect the choice of business and region because many areas have inclement weather conditions ruling out the possibility of a successful bike-sharing business. Rarely would anyone wish to travel by bike in the immensely hot weather of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico in summer. Similarly, intensely cold weather of northern regions in winter is likely to halt the bike-sharing business.

Bike-sharing industry offers a range of businesses

The areas where socioeconomic and geographic conditions suit bike-sharing app services allow the implementation of following business models.

On-demand bike

This model is around for over a decade now. South Asia and Asia-Pacific are the most successful regions with China and India. Many emerging startups are offering these services because urban areas in these regions are densely populated. The high population density discourages the use of cars and buses.

To acquire an on-demand bike service, a user has to request a ride from a smartphone app. The administration staff in company dispatches the most appropriate bike based on location of user. Although the process of dispatching is automated, yet staff administers the process. An agent, usually a gig worker, completes the request.

Bike pooling

This is one of the most disruptive and flourishing business models in rideshare industry. The worldwide market is set to reach $2 billion. Its success pushed industry leaders including Uber and Lyft to start offering such services. The types of bikes widely vary because motorcycles cost more than bikes and scooters.

Uber uses Jump scooters for bike pooling with second generation of such bikes rolling out next week. These electric scooters, though small, are highly cost-efficient for users and operators alike. Lyft, on the other hand, offers e-bikes under the brand name Bay Wheels in the Bay Area. These bikes ensure that the service remains independent of docks by providing locks.

The innovation in machinery over time enables developing and underdeveloped countries as well to implement this model. Asia-Pacific is arguably the top contributor in development of bike-sharing industry with oBike in Singapore, and ofo and Mobike in Beijing among the prominent names.

Delivery bike

The success of Grubhub and postmates encouraged a number of startups to introduce on-demand food and parcel delivery services in respective regions. Uber also followed the suit with its Eats model.

Delivery business attains excessive profit margin because operators are able to develop partnerships with food outlets and grocery stores. Such partnerships are helpful for stores, fast food outlets, and restaurants because they can save costs spent on maintaining delivery fleet.

Since the amount of food consumption, number of marketplace businesses, and on-demand grocery stores increasing relentlessly, the demand for delivery bike services will continue to incline at a remarkable rate.

Types of ownership

The companies offering on-demand or pooled bike services either keep company-owned fleet of bikes or register private ones. In the latter scenario, bike owners register their vehicles with on-demand startup and attain a part of generated revenue. Research reveals that this model works better than former because startups can save the purchase and maintenance costs significantly.

However, registering private bikes only works well for companies whose daily users are more than at least a hundred thousand. In case of small number of users, the profit margin is too small as a significant part of total earning goes to bike owner. Thus, keeping a base amount of company-owned fleet is advisable to ensure services at all times.

Challenges in Bike Sharing Industry

Every business has its own set of challenges. Bike share industry is no less challenging. Three most notable problems are shared.

    1. There is no regulation whatsoever that pushes riders to park a bike at appropriate places. Most service seekers abandon bikes in the middle of car parks, driveways, and sidewalks. These bikes create traffic congestion and annoy pedestrians and homeowners. Many countries are developing docking areas so that riders can find at least one dock in every square mile.

    2. The riding patterns are inconsistent in that some areas have far more bikes accumulated than others. Consequently, the areas with a lesser number of bikes often face increased demand but insufficient supply. Some companies acquire services of recovery vehicles to pick and redistribute bikes at various locations.

    3. Companies in many areas face vandalism. Bikes are destroyed or stolen for multiple reasons. While developing countries are more likely to face vandalism, developed countries are not safe either. Gobee bike-share service shut down its operations in France amid increased mass destruction of its fleet. Nevertheless, many new models of bikes have embedded sensors which alarm authorities in case of such an event.

The collaborations between manufacturers, service providers, and city administrations are enabling startups to overcome challenges. The introduction of e-bikes and e-scooters will not only minimize costs but will also contribute toward preserving biodiversity.

CabStartup powers startups to introduce matchless solutions in on-demand and shared mobility industries. Get CabStartup platform today without any cost before rebranding it for your business.

By Shahrukh Satti 0 Comments

Small Transport Business Ideas with Low Startup Costs

Building transportation, logistics, or ride-hailing empire as big as Uber and Postmates is not an overnight job. Such businesses take a considerable amount of time in planning, development, and marketing. Nevertheless, there are small transport business ideas which allow you to establish a profitable startup in a considerably short span of time.

The compilation of this list of the most suitable low-cost business ideas follows a wide-ranging criterion. The criterion parameters are shared below.

  • The list only considers the potential businesses with planning and development cost under $100,000.
  • Although on-demand taxi services like Uber and Lyft also fall in this cost range, yet this article lists overlooked ideas.
  • The return on investment should be quicker. There are business models with immense growth and revenue generating potential but requiring excessive time to become profitable.
  • The industry should be far from a point of saturation. In essence, the availability of a business should not be higher than its demand. Otherwise, your startup will be facing fierce competition from industry leaders prompting you to quit.

On-demand Peer-to-peer Car Pooling Business

This kind of transportation business is gaining momentum in the wake of rapidly growing traffic problems. Over 80% of the commuters are the alone riders. In essence, most vehicles carry only a single person. Thus, out of every 100 cars traveling on a highway, over 80 cars will have single passenger. Ride-hailing and taxi services also carry this drawback.

Peer-to-peer ride-sharing services present a fruitful solution. It enables the passengers to book seats in a vehicle instead of reserving entire vehicle. It is different from public transit in that the stations are dynamic. Via was the pioneer rideshare service while the growing need for this service prompted Uber to introduce UberPool. Other ride-hailing giants are also following the suits.

Bike Rental Service

Bikes can also be used to develop an identical business to carpooling. Governments and local administrations in all US states are promoting the initiatives which are ensuring to preserve the environment. If you intend to further reduce the cost of operations, peer-to-peer services will be suitable instead of owning a fleet.

Bikepooling services are the most effective small business ideas with low startup cost. Starting such a business keeps operational costs very low while the revenue is relatively higher. Research indicates that the average occupation time of a bike is lesser than that of cars in rental services. Thus, customers are more likely to find an idle bike than a car.

Travel Agency

The revenue of travel industry in the US alone is projected to reach $17.3 billion in 2020 – up from $12.2 billion a decade back. Marketing of travel agency is the most significant factor manipulating the probability of success. You do not need to own vehicles. Instead, partnerships with transport giants can provide you a cost-effective alternative.

Besides, you need to have deep roots in the industry associates. For instance, top travel agents collaborate with restaurants and hotels to ensure mutual growth. For this reason, 78% of the revenue in this industry depends on the commission acquired from associates.

Waste Disposal Business

The startup costs are not as low as peer-to-peer models, yet the return is notable. Environmentalists report that the amount of waste will grow by 70% yearly in the next three decades. The total volume of waste already crossed 2 billion tonnes in 2016. Almost all areas in the US and Western European metropolitans require businesses to make arrangements for appropriate waste management.

Thus, the corporate sector pays a considerable amount to waste collection and disposal companies. Your initial investment in this sector would be higher but soon you will reach the breakeven point. Thus, waste disposal is one of the considerable small transport business ideas.

Intra-city On-demand Courier

The delivery services including Postmates and Grubhub are on their way to becoming startup unicorns in well under ten years since their inception. E-commerce and on-demand grocery businesses supplement logistics business ideas. Despite their fast growth and widespread operations, they are still lagging behind demand.

Restaurants are swiftly adopting the on-demand models owing to the relentlessly growing demand. Firehouse presents one of such examples. This fast food on-demand remained a dine-in facility for almost two decades. However, it started on-demand services at the beginning of this decade and managed to grow the revenue by manifolds.

Non-emergency Medical Transportation

Like the waste collection, NEMT is among small business ideas having low investment. However, you may keep the cost lower by choosing not to own vehicles. Instead, you can connect the customers with service providers in the area. In doing so, you can keep a part of the earning as commission. Stat is a startup which provides such on-demand healthcare services.

Its growing demand indicates that these services will be among the most sought-after services. The chief reason is the increasing median age of the US European population.

Although you may also choose to provide emergency services, yet the cost of operation will become intensely higher. NEMT, on the other hand, allows flexibility of time. Passengers in such services may not always be patients or senior citizens. A range of business ideas originates from NEMT model.

For instance, Zūm is an on-demand rideshare service, particularly for children. The startup providing services in California managed to raise $40 million in funding. Apart from enabling children to visit amusement parks, Zūm also offers to pick and drop services to schools.

Try our Free of Cost On-demand Innovation Platform

Selection of a suitable business model is first but a significant step in becoming a transport tycoon. Each of the above small transport business ideas has massive growth potential due to impressive rate of increasing demand. The second step is the planning and execution of the selected model.

CabStartup ensures that your transport business ideas meet the right execution strategies with state-of-the-art technologies. Try our free of cost on-demand transportation platform right now.

By Shahrukh Satti 0 Comments

Composition and Functioning of Medical Transportation Software

The advent of ride-hailing startups has unlocked a range of business models with same fundamental principles. One notable model reflects in dispatch software for medical transportation. The demand for such services is drastically rising with projections of further inclination in the upcoming decade. Although there are multiple factors, yet the most significant one is the growing median age indicating increasing senior citizen percentage.

How does medical transportation dispatch software work?

The functioning of dispatcher software and its associated apps is identical to Uber and other ride-hailing services in most part. Following is a sequence of events while working with NEMT dispatcher platform of CabStartup.

Placing a request

Patient or a caretaker can place a request through either a smartphone app or a phone call. CabStartup recommends facilitating the customers with an app because call may lead to misunderstanding. Using an app, the patient can choose the service of one’s choice. Unlike a phone call, a customer can enter specifications within the app.

The specs may include date, time, and location of pickup, and medical coverage details. You may also provide customers with the ability to choose between emergency or NEMT. In essence, you can add as many details in the customer app as you wish.

Medical transportation scheduling

The admin panel alarms the administrators as soon as the customer places a request. If the customer intends to acquire emergency transportation, software displays the most suitable vehicle for dispatch. The suitability depends on factors including distance of vehicle from patient, and number of requests addressed by each vehicle in the vicinity.

The latter factor is significant because overburdening a driver with back-to-back tasks may lead to exhaustion and fatigue. In the NEMT case, the software is more flexible in selecting the driver. Automation of task scheduler ensures that the system does most of the job so that admins can perform other tasks.

Payment Verification

Some medical transportation service providers require making partial payment during scheduling. In traditional NEMT business models, this requirement is a massive blocker in dispatching timely services to patients. The customers have to submit details for a credit card or another payment method over the phone.

Using an app enables the customers to skip entering the details because apps provide the facility of in-app wallet. Thus, customers can pay before or after acquiring services. It is very important that each of the tasks from placing a request to payment verification and vehicle dispatch should occur seamlessly. As a benchmark, this entire process should not take more than two minutes.

Dispatching the Ride for Pickup

A NEMT vehicle dispatched to pick up patient has the facility to get optimized route plan as soon as it receives the patient’s location. The customer app from CabStartup allows real-time tracking of dispatcher van.

You can also facilitate the customers to schedule round trips. Paratransit dispatch software systems provide this option almost all the time. They should also be able to change their booking details at a later stage. Besides, the software should automatically update the status of the task from pending to in-progress, and finally, to complete.

 

What components of dispatch bot software are crucial?

Medical transportation companies may choose from a range of existing features for software. You may also incorporate unique features to ensure that your business stands out from others. Regardless of what you may choose, following are components are inevitable.

Distinctive NEMT Software Interfaces

Four types of users interact with the entire NEMT software ecosystem.

  1. Administrators view reports and analytics to highlight the loopholes. They also identify the areas where a business makes significant progress.
  2. Dispatch staff is responsible for addressing the requests from customers. They ensure that the system dispatches the appropriate vehicle as per customer’s specifications.
  3. Patients schedule service through their smartphone with few clicks. The in-app wallet reduces scheduling time while ride tracking facility ensures providing estimated arrival time to customers.
  4. Drivers complete the tasks of pickup and dropping off the patients at directed locations. It is notable that medical transportation rarely follows the gig economy model. Mostly, there is a dedicated staff including drivers and patient caretakers.

Each of the users should have separate interfaces of software. For instance, Driver and customers have dedicated apps while administrators and dispatch staff have laptop-based software systems.

NEMT Task Automation

Any medical transportation software would serve no purpose if it does not ensure automation. On the service seekers’ end, the app should find and schedule the most suitable service. It should also off-burden customers with the task of entering credit card and coverage info repeatedly.

CabStartup ensures that you can avoid this repetition by allowing dedicated profiles for customers. The customers need to share details only once after downloading the app.

Similarly, dispatch staff should also be free from manually finding the appropriate vehicle. Administrators can view individual performance of vehicle staff as well as collective performance of business.

Analytics Dashboard

Admins should also be able to make informed decisions by utilizing the results of predictive data analytics. The analytics dashboard provides graphs and charts with Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Such dashboards are identical to management and executive information systems in enterprises.

Cloud-based Platform for Dispatch Software Users’ Connectivity

Although four fundamentally different users interact with medical transportation dispatch software, yet there must be a mechanism which binds them together. It is essential to ensure the unhindered flow of events.

For instance, when a customer schedules service from patient app, the ride specific details also get updated in dispatcher panel. Furthermore, driver app finds the specifications as well when a task is dispatched to driver.

Cloud-based platforms ensure that the underlying communication and data sharing platform of each user remains same. These platforms are also vital because they provide excessive data security and storage mechanism.

 

NEMT software pricing

The use cases and a subset of features in non-emergency medical transportation dispatch software might differ from ride-hailing apps. However, the pricing structure at Cabstartup remains the same. This uniformity follows from the fact that you can build over our platform and rebrand it as your own.

You can start testing our platform today and continue to evaluate it for the next 15 days. Start your free trial right now.

By Shahrukh Satti 0 Comments
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