Starting your own on demand taxi business

Idea

Firstly, you have to look at your surroundings and decide whether the particular town/city you live in is a good environment for your on demand taxi service business to thrive.
If so, then you should move on to the next stage, which is making a comprehensive business plan. This plan is going to be your business’s blueprint so it should include things like Objectives, Marketing strategies, Action Plan, Financial Plan, etc.

Objectives

You have to identify the company's goals
What those objectives are is up to you, but mostly these objectives are centered around marketing (penetrating a particular percentage of the market), finances (making a specific amount of gross profit in any number of years), expansion (expanding the business to more cities in any number of years).

Licenses

Business License: Before starting the business, you’re going to need to apply for a business license for the city within which you wish to operate your taxis. You will need to present your business plan to the appropriate officials to show them that your business will comply with all the laws surrounding running a cab business in the respective city.
Drivers License: You (provided you are driving as well) and your drivers will need to have valid commercial driving licenses before your taxi company can begin operating and start providing customers with transport services.
Vehicle License: Your company’s vehicles, whether own or leased, must be commercially licensed, must be plated with authority-prescribed color, and must be fit for transport by the local authority’s safety rules.

Documentation

Contract: The company and the drivers have to come to an official agreement. The contract will highlight essential factors such as service duration, salary (fixed, per trip, etc.), etc.
Insurance: You have to acquire commercial insurance for the business, safety insurance for your taxis, insurance for drivers, etc.
Vehicle Permission: In the event of leased vehicles, an agreement has to be signed which highlights the vehicle’s intended use, the permissions granted and restrictions set by the leasing party, the fee, the duration, etc.

Segmentation

You can segment your market in different ways. For a taxi business, the market segmented into a few categories, namely, type of service, the target area, etc.
Type of Service: Type of service includes yellow taxi, black cab, pedicab, etc. Once you figure out which type caters to which market, you can decide which one you want to focus on first and which one to focus on later.
The Target Areas: You have to determine which areas in the market require your services and which don’t. Then you can focus on the areas which are in need of the services your cab startup provides.

Marketing Strategies

Digital Marketing: In today's internet age, a digital marketing campaign’s success or failure can prove to be detrimental to the company’s success or failure. Having a company website, social media accounts, and meaningful customer interactions are essential for a successful digital marketing campaign.
Word of Mouth: is an advantageous marketing method, but for that, your taxi service is going to have to impress your customers to get them to talk positively about you.
Promotions: Through the company’s various social media accounts, website, and passenger app you can offer valuable discount promotions or loyalty awards, etc. The promotions and awards offer potential customers an incentive to give your taxi service a chance and can become an effective method for bringing in customers.

Technology

To run an automated taxi dispatch system, you are going to need a digital system that supports the computerized model. A system that, should you decide not to build your own, CabStartup is more than happy to provide.
CabStartup’s system is a white label system that has all the necessary state-of-the-art components and more such as Passenger Application, Driver Application, Admin Panel and Dispatcher Panel.
Passenger Application: allows the passengers to hail their preferred cab type within a few taps and travel comfortably, along with other features.
Driver Application: connects the driver with the passenger and allows drivers to accept rides and offers additional features as well.
Admin Panel: provides the ability for admins to manage and track applications, trips, users, sales, etc. and offers additional functionality as well.
Dispatcher Panel: provides a robust backend that is enriched with analytics and reports and offers more features as well, That allows the dispatchers to entertain customers who are non smartphone users and prefer to book a ride over a phone call.

Partners

Agreements: You can partner with local hotspots such as malls, cinemas, universities, etc. (Any place which has the potential to bring in a healthy amount of customers) and have them keep your booking portals to make cab hailing easier for customers.
Competitors: You can allow other on-demand taxi service businesses to get rides through booking portals that you have set up throughout the city, for a fee of course.

Finances

CabStartup’s Admin Panel has simplified the business’s financial management.
The panel provides detailed accounts of revenue generated, expenses including driver salary, profit, etc.

Service

After gaining a strong foothold in your current service market, it would be wise to expand your service to more types such as ParaTransit, etc. to cater to a broader audience.
You can hire more drivers to smoothly compensate current recurring customers and gain a broader customer base.

New Market

Once your cab business is strong enough, you can expand it to an entirely new location such as a different town, city or maybe even a different country!
However, you may need to conduct a risk analysis beforehand to determine whether there is a market opening in your location of choice or not.
CabStartup’s system can make the expansion almost effortless from a technological standpoint due to the system’s cloud hosting provision using which the system offers central management facilities.

As a company, your primary goal is to meet the objectives you defined early on in the business plan.
However, once you meet the objectives, you have to define a new set for your business to ensure growth. A company must continue growing to remain successful, and it cannot grow without having some goal(s) to achieve.