On-Demand Taxi App Development Features, Trends & Costs

Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS) is a type of service that enables users to plan, book, and pay for multiple types of mobility services through a joint digital channel. This concept represents a shift from personal-owned modes to mobility as a service. Today, taxi apps have outperformed traditional taxi services. People are shifting away from owning their transportation mode and moving to mobility solutions (MaaS).

Online cab booking App is highly in demand. Statista projects a 2.5% increase in taxi app usage and a 60% increase in revenue from ride-hailing in 2021. This article will explain how to create a taxi app and provide a rough estimate of the cost.

Taxi App Development Best Practices

It’s easy to admire the leaders of the ride-hailing business, given the intense competition. This is why it’s important to consider how to build a taxi app. Grab, Lyft and Uber are the leaders in the taxi industry. It’s worth looking into them.

1. Uber

Garrett Camp founded UberCab in 2009 and is the pioneer of this ride-hailing service. Uber is currently available in 630 cities, and it is growing. This growth can be attributed to the acquisition of related services. Uber spent $3.1 billion to acquire Careem, a Middle Eastern app for booking taxis, in 2019.

The service offers many options to suit different price points and users. Uber Pool, Uber X and Uber Go are just a few options. Uber is always looking to expand its reach in new markets. Uber recently began experimenting with parcel- and food delivery like Uber Fresh and Uber Eats.

Uber’s development has been rapid and expensive. NextWeb estimates that the cost of Uber’s app, which includes both a rider and taxi app, will be $1M to $1.5M based on Uber’s initial funding rounds.

The initial investment in the Uber taxi app was several million dollars from nine investors. Take this as an example: Uber Technologies raised over $22 billion to fund its taxi booking app.

2. Lyft

Lyft was launched in 2012, just after Uber. It began as Zimride, which is a long-distance ridesharing app that connects passengers and drivers via Facebook.

Lyft is now considered an Uber competitor, with a presence in over 200 cities across the United States. Lyft’s distinctive feature is its ranking system. This ensures that only the most skilled drivers are retained. Lyft’s taxi app also offers $1 million liability insurance. Lyft is cheaper than Uber, with an average cost of $12 per ride compared to Uber’s $16.

3. Curb

Curb, another US-based taxi booking service, has a fleet of more than 50,000 taxis as well as a few hired cars that are spread across 65 US cities. The ride-booking process offers three options for passengers: “Ride now,” “Ride later”, and “Pair and Pay.”

The biggest difference between Uber and Curb is the Curb app doesn’t have aggressive surge pricing, which Uber has been criticised for. Surge pricing is the practice of adjusting prices to meet demand. The Curb ride fare is now lower and the taxi app offers a more eco-friendly service. Passengers are also paid $1.95 commission in addition to the trip fees.

4. Grab

Grab is a popular app for booking taxis in Southeast Asia. It has branches in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. The app allows you to choose from a range of payment options, including cash, cards, and Grab credits. GrabTaxi and GrabShare are available mobility options. GrabFamily, GrabHitch, GrabBike or GrabHitch are some examples. Grab also offers a number of services for item and food delivery, which are very popular with restaurants and retailers.

5. Gett

The taxi booking service is available in more than 100 cities across the United States and Europe. Two of the Gett app’s key advantages are the ability to book your trip up to two weeks in advance, and the availability 24/7 of passenger service. Each trip costs only 10% of the commission fee and there is no surge pricing. The launch of the service in Europe was funded by $300 million investment by Volkswagen Group.

Features and Monetization for Taxi App Development

A native app is recommended for taxi app growth. This allows you to create a customized app for each operating platform, which will improve performance, speed and security. It also gives you access to the built-in features of your smartphone, such as maps and geolocation. Traditional taxi apps have three components that are interconnected but distinct: a driver app and a passenger app. An admin panel is used to manage business operations.

Basic and advanced features for a successful Taxi App

Below is a list of basic and advanced features you should be aware of when developing your taxi app.

Monetization of Taxi App

While you are working on your app, you want to make it more profitable. There are many ways to make money with mobile apps. However, they vary depending on what type of app you have and the features it offers. Let’s look at how ride-hailing apps can be monetized.

Commission from the Trips

The trips generate profits. This is an obvious option. This is a matter of the entire taxi industry, not just the app’s monetization. This means that business owners get a percentage of the driver’s earnings.

Passengers may pay slightly more than they would without the commission, but drivers can have different compensation arrangements. Drivers may receive the entire fare and return some money to the company. Or, they may get all of their net income.

Let’s say, for example, that an app offers a driver balance option. If a customer pays $10 to drive, the bank receives the whole amount. After a time period, the customer returns a percentage of the money, leaving $9 as balance. The second option is available if only $9 remains on the balance.

Driver’s charges for the app

The payment may be a percentage or a fixed amount depending on the application. It depends on the policies of the company whether a driver pays it once per week or once per month.

Cancellation fees

This revenue is usually generated by the passenger. However, some apps may offer this option for the driver. In all cases, money should be taken from the account of a passenger who refuses to offer or take a ride.

Advertising

This is one of the most common ways to make money in tech. It is easier to incorporate mobile apps. An app owner can place ads and charge a cost per click or cost per impression commission. This technique is not recommended. You should be aware of where and how many ads are displayed in the app, as well as how pertinent they are to the app.

Subscribe to Additional Services

Premium deals can be monetized if you think about it. If you are able to do something your competitors cannot, make it a revenue source.

However, the price for all features should not be the same. People who select the standard subscription instead of the premium subscription will find the taxi app identical. A freemium model might be an option. This allows users to test out additional features before making a decision about whether to purchase them.

Think about what your passengers might want and how much they are willing to pay for premium features in your cab-hailing app. Your audience may be able to find features that will save them time, such as a subscription for certain trips. Other services include super-fast taxi delivery and secret phone numbers.

Taxi App Development Process

Before we dive into the costs of growing taxi apps, it is important to understand the process behind the software. There are a few key steps that will help you understand the process.

• Phases of Discovery & Market Research
• Development includes testing and deployment
• Maintenance and Support
• Marketing and Promotion (Digital Marketing Services & SEO Services).

Discovery Phase

Although it might not seem like so, the discovery stage can be just as important as the other stages. Although some people think it’s not worth the investment, it saves many lives.

A customer and a service provider work together to develop a common understanding of the potential app and create guidelines. This stage is a collaborative effort by business analysts, project managers, product owners, and designers.

The designers are asked to think about what the other members of the team will say verbally during the discovery stage. During production, they design the whole cab booking app. As needed, they create wireframes and mockups, as well as graphs, wireframes and wireframes.

Phase of Development

Software goes through the same stages, regardless of which SDLC model it uses. However, some methodologies can be more flexible than others. The term “agile” is a trusted and reliable approach. Its primary focus is on the customer relationship. Agile allows for changes to the original plan in order to satisfy the needs of the client. Agile, unlike the Waterfall model, allows experts to change the layout of the app in the middle or even during production.

A taxi app development company will send out a test version to different platforms during the development process. You, the client, will review it and let the team know if you have any concerns. If this is the case, the AppStore will publish the final version and support and maintenance will begin.

Support, maintenance, and updates

This stage requires minimal customer involvement. The service provider’s team takes care of everything during the repair, assistance, and upgrade phases. This begins shortly after the product launches and lasts for many years. Our experts will keep a taxi app updated on a regular basis. They will fix any bugs that may arise and improve it.

Taxi App Development Cost & Timeline

The most important price-shaping element is the production team. Your project details will determine the experts that will make up your team. The final price is not determined solely by developer wages. However, they are an important factor. Here is a list of basic team members:

• Analyst in business
• Project manager
• UX/UI designers
• Frontend and backend developers
• Qualified individuals in Quality Assurance

The project’s timeline is calculated during the pre-development stage. Once specialists have collected all the criteria, they will give the estimated time. It depends on the features of the app. Because we don’t know everything, we can only guess at the time period.

It would take approximately three months to build a driver’s app. Two months for a passenger app and one month to build a dispatch panel. These figures can be used to estimate the amount of money that would be spent on wages. Find out more about Shiv Technolabs costs!

Shiv Technolabs will provide the final estimates to anyone who doesn’t want to do any evaluating. The price of a hybrid or native approach can vary depending on which one you choose. Now that we have discussed the advantages and disadvantages, let’s take a look at the numbers.

Native development for taxi app development cost

• A basic MVP would run about $40k per platform.
• Apps with more complex functionality and costing $100k-$150k per platform

Hybrid development for taxi app development cost

• A MVP with basic functionality starting at $45k
• Advanced functionality in Taxi App – $125k-175k

Conclusion

Remember to consider the potential of taxi-hailing services. The world is moving towards more efficient and cheaper transportation options and mobility. With the advancement of autonomous vehicles, there will be no need to hire a driver. This will reduce running costs and eliminate parking issues. As part of a Lyft collaboration, Tesla Inc. and General Motors have begun to develop self-driving vehicles.

Taxi app development requires a substantial financial and time investment. You need to find reliable and competent taxi app developers. It is important to choose a software development team that is both supportive and technologically advanced.