Taxi Comparison App Use Cases and Revenue Models

Taxi management software and rideshare platform are redefining taxi business landscape for over a decade now. An efficiently built and marketed rideshare software app is likely to generate revenues as well as attract funding from investors. However, some cities are way too much saturated with ride-hailing businesses that there is barely any room for more. Nevertheless, the presence of rideshare businesses in large number can be put to your benefit by offering a taxi comparison app.

Such an app serves to facilitate users by enabling them to compare services of various providers. These apps do not only compare ride fares but frequency of vehicles in a region, discounts offered from various providers, and a one stop-shop for booking rides from any company.

Rideshare Comparison App Use Cases

Following are some of the most notable use cases of taxi comparison app each of which should be considered while developing such an app.

1. Vehicles in Proximity

Passengers are able to approximate the arrival time of a vehicle when the apps like Uber and Lyft show all the idle vehicles in the vicinity. However, a taxi comparison app can depict vehicle from Uber, Lyft, other rideshare companies in the same app.

You may use different colors or another scheme to distinguish vehicles of one rideshare company from another. Each of the vehicles, regardless of the company they are registered at, appears in the map in real-time.

Also read: A Comprehensive Guide to Acquiring Taxi Management Software

A problem would arise when a vehicle is registered for two or more services. For instance, drivers often use a vehicle for Uber as well as Lyft. In such scenarios, the app displays single vehicle after verification from license plate number.

The app should show the nearby vehicles to not only the passengers but to drivers as well. This ability enables drivers to relocate themselves to a location where the demand is higher due to lower number of vehicles.
Such drivers can avoid the mess of playing around multiple apps. Instead, they can accept rides, and estimate saturation of vehicles in an area from a single app.

2. Rideshare Fare Estimator

This is one of the most crucial features because the decision of passengers to take a ride rests big time on the estimated fare. The passengers usually open multiple rideshare apps to compare the fare and take the one which is relatively inexpensive.

A taxi fare comparison app would require a passenger to input pickup and drop-off locations. The app would estimate the fare for each rideshare app depending on the factors which affect the change in fare.

For instance, Uber charges passengers with:

1. A basic fare which is the mimimum amount to take Uber ride irrespective of the distance you cover.
2. Distance traversed and time consumed from starting point to destination.
3. Surge pricing if the demand is higher due to fewer number of vehicles available in an area.

Considering these parameters, Uber provides a range of estimated fare. In many cities, both Uber and Lyft share the exact fare upfront before a passenger confirms a ride. However, the factors affecting fare remain as above.

Also read: Starting a Taxi Business from Scratch to Summit

Apart from these essential factors influencing the fare, there are some occasional factors as well. For instance, toll fees, cancellation or no-show fees, and airport fess are notable.

3. Single App for Booking

A taxi comparison does not only necessarily be limited to estimating the fare and knowing the number of nearby vehicles. You can also schedule a ride with any rideshare provider using one app.

It is notable that booking a ride requires the passengers to already be logged in to the account of actual service provider. Conversely, you cannot book a taxi service with Uber or Lyft unless you have a profile for them and you have already given access of these profiles to comparison app.

Thus, when a passenger schedule a ride, say on Lyft using the comparison app, the request would be redirected from comparison app to Lyft. In essence, the passenger would be scheduling a Lyft ride using a different platform.

Also read: Advanced Features for Ride-Hailing Apps to Outsmart Rivals

Similarly, a driver accepting the ride from comparison app would actually be accepting a request from a particular rideshare customer of Lyft, Uber, or another service provider.

The ratings and feedback shared by passengers and drivers would end up at the corresponding service provider only. Moreover, the app can also be used to make payments. However, paying through taxi comparison app would take additional service charges because this app would serve as middleman between passenger and service provider.

4. Drivers’ Availability for All Online Taxi Services

Rideshare companies allow drivers to make them available or unavailable to accept rides at any given time. Some of the taxi companies employing gig workers also offer this flexibility to part timers.

Many gig workers of taxi and rideshare companies work for more than one company. While serving passenger of one service provider, they stay unavailable over the other companies that they serve.

For instance, a person might be registered as driver at Uber, Lyft, and Via simultaneously. However, s/he would serve customer of only one of these companies at a time – unless one is picking carpool customers for each company.
In such scenarios, drivers do not have to keep multiple apps. Instead, you can provide them a single but comprehensive rideshare comparison app.

In cases where an online taxi service only works with full-time workers, you may still facilitate rideshare passengers. and drivers with comparison app. Such drivers need to stay available at all times. Thus, the passengers can schedule a taxi ride through estimator app as well.

5. Unlimited Rideshare Collaboration

Being a comparison app owner, you can add as many apps as would want. The integration of more apps would require more space at servers to accommodate dedicated processors.

You can either choose to collaborate with rideshare companies or remain independent. In the former case, collaborations provide you with the ability to perform entire scheduling activity through your comparison app. In return, you might need to pay your partner.

Such partnerships facilitate customers by scheduling a ride without needing to install the relevant app. However, very few companies – mostly nascent startups – allow such collaborations. Top rideshare providers like Lyft and Uber do not need a third party to market their business.

Also read: Enabling Taxi Drivers to Attract More Customers

If you do not find a partner, taxi comparison app would still work. You can allow passengers to compare fares with rideshare fare estimator or enable them to view all the idle drivers in the area. Similarly, the drivers of rideshare and taxi companies can use your single app to manage accounts on multiple apps.

6. Ride History Retrieval

If the user gives permission to view data, a comparison app can also share records from previous rides. This works because you can only view a user’s data from particular rideshare company when you log into user’s account.
The app can take permission by requesting the user to log in. However, the app should not view the login credentials because doing so would breach the data privacy policy of the US and GDPR in the EU.

The aim of getting access to many accounts of same user is to provide them a single source of managing all of their accounts.

7. Discounts from all Rideshare Providers

One significant use case of a taxi comparison app is to share the discounts from all rideshare companies. The discounts vary for customers. In essence, some customers may get 20% off on all kinds of rides while others may get 30% discount on a specific kind of ride.

A comparison app should compare every category in one rideshare company with its equivalent category in another company. For instance, the rideshare fare estimator software in your app should compare Lyft XL with Uber XL. Similarly, the fare for Uber Pool should be compared with Lyft Shared.

The comparison app should also provide the fare after application of available discounts from various taxi booking app service providers. This is significant because the fare from one service may not necessarily be less despite the availability of discount. Surge in fares during the times of high demand markedly change fares. Thus, passengers should be able to compare fares from same categories after the application discounts.

Revenue Models for Taxi Comparison App

There is a range of earning models when offering a comparison app. You should be aware of these models while working on taxi comparison app development. Some of the most significant ones are as under.

1. Collaborate with rideshare and taxi companies to market their business through your app. These companies would share a part of their earnings as long as they use your app for promotion.
2. Take a small subscription fees from drivers and facilitate them in getting more rides in return.
3. Sell paid subscriptions to customers and getting them abreast with promos and all the news that they should know.
4. Use advertisement videos, images, and banners. Be sure not to annoy users with excessive ads because user satisfaction is crucial to success of this business model. As a reference, you may consider the amount of ads used on Uber Lite app. The quantity of ads is fair enough not to cause annoyance at user’s end.

CabStartup develops software systems for rideshare startups as well as established taxi and transport companies. Apart from software development team, we also have experts from rideshare industry which enable us to create the most promising technologies for rideshare, logistics, and delivery industries.

We have also successfully developed a platform that provides a comparison of existing taxi and rideshare services. We invite you to take free trial of CabStartup rideshare platform for two weeks before partnering with us.