Developing a taxi booking app is a great concept for startups, current businesses, and enterprises looking to improve workforce mobility and convenience. It’s possible that you would agree that taxi mobile apps are starting to outdo conventional taxi companies. Individuals are transitioning from owning their means of transportation to using mobility solutions as a service (MaaS).
According to the data, around 35 million additional trips were taken using services such as Uber and Lyft compared to traditional taxis in New York in 2017. Additionally, according to Statista’s forecasts, the yearly expansion of the worldwide ride-hailing service sector is expected to hit $126,521 million by 2025.
As taxi booking apps gain popularity, we have created a comprehensive guide for you on developing travel and taxi booking apps. Read this blog to learn everything you need to know.
Taxi booking app development is a type of business that offers advantages like money and time by creating mobile applications.
With taxi applications, you may simultaneously interact with two primary interfaces, passengers and taxi drivers, which are visible to you in the same phase.
Asian, American, and European nations increasingly depend on taxi booking app development because of the increase in steady income.
Additionally, due to the increase in smartphone use in emerging nations like Vietnam, Malaysia, China, India, and other countries, consumers are increasingly turning to ride-sharing services rather than traditional taxi services for transportation.
Due to this strategy, many taxi firms have been encouraged to extend their operations via mobile apps.
The ease with which online taxi reservations may be made and traffic congestion are the primary reasons for developing the online taxi industry and a taxi booking app like Uber.
In this era of digitization, the Uber app has become one of the most popular apps with its distinctive business model. It is a two-sided marketplace platform following an aggregator model. Let’s look at the following steps to explain the workflow of an online taxing booking app such as Uber.
In this era of digitization, the Uber app has become one of the most popular apps with its distinctive business model. It is a two-sided marketplace platform following an aggregator model. Let’s look at the following steps to explain the workflow of an online taxing booking app such as Uber.
Once the initial setup is completed and location access is given, they can send ride requests by specifying the pick-up and drop locations.
The app will send the ride requests initiated by the passengers to the drivers. If a driver accepts the request, the booking confirmation will be sent to the rider. If the driver rejects the request, it will be passed on to the nearby driver.
After the ride confirmation, the driver will reach the pickup point with the help of a taxi tracking map, and riders will take their rides. The riders can check the way to ensure the drivers are riding to the correct destination point.
After reaching the destination, the riders can make either cash or digital payments. You can allow cashless payments to make transactions simpler and easier.
To gain trust among the passengers, you can encourage them to leave their opinions regarding the service you are offering. It includes collecting reviews or ratings about the behavior of drivers.
An owner can set an amount he wants to charge as a commission for every ride. Therefore, the driver has to pay a fixed amount after he starts working on your platform.
Cancellation fees are another great way of generating revenue from customers. There is a decided period in which a customer can cancel a ride. If a customer takes longer than that, he must pay a cancellation fee on the next trip.
Surge pricing has been a very controversial feature so far. However, you must integrate this feature in your taxing booking application as it changes the fare dynamically by analyzing various factors such as weather, local events, traffic, and demand.
The owner can also charge a subscription fee to the customers, for which you can offer them access to advanced and premium features.
Interested customers can pay the subscription charges to enjoy the perks of premium features.
You can easily advertise your Uber business model through various channels if you think the promotional method would be costly.
You can also do in-app advertisements and display ads on your app.
Let’s discuss the development process of the taxi booking application step by step:
Learning about the market in which you are about to step is essential.
First of all, you need to select a location for your app within a city or country, and then later, you can plan to expand it globally.
You must also select the best payment system for your country.
Choosing an appropriate payment system is also important because countries have different and famous payment systems.
These factors greatly influence the complexity of the final product and testing process.
This is a very important step in the development process of the taxi booking app.
At this step, you decide whether you will be a company that hires drivers and pays their salary or wants an Uber-like business.
The selection of monetization ways greatly affects the complete development process. You can design an app that will take money from drivers they get from rides as the common taxi orders base.
Therefore, passengers pay the drivers directly, and you get a fee.
This step of the taxi booking app development process includes creating a detailed technical specification with a list of requirements.
It gives complete clarity about the architecture and functionalities of the application that is to be developed.
This step can be handled by a team or by an outsourcing company.
They use technical language to help stakeholders easily understand what you will build.
The technical specification helps you with cost estimation as well.
Choosing the best development model for your app is another important step in development.
The development model helps you determine the cost and time required to build the application. You should clearly understand what team members you need to complete the development process.
The app development process usually includes developers, UX UI designers, and the QA team.
If you choose to create a team by yourself, it is very expensive. You should simply hire an entire team or a company that is available at a low cost and guarantees a higher success rate.
Once you have selected the development team for your taxi booking application, the UX UI design team handles the next step.
This is to be done before the development.
Designers will give you different prototypes, including wireframes and mock-ups, to help you visualize their final application. Hence, at this step, you need to discuss your needs and plans for the app design with your UX UI team.
The backend development step is done to integrate the mobile app’s functionalities with the database.
During this stage, developers package your application with the server and middleware. Your development team also selects a team that works with Java, Python, Go, or Swift.
These are the most prominent languages used to create the application’s backend and depend on the platform your platform will work for.
Once you have completed all the steps, you can deliver your app to the QA team for complex testing. Quality analysts check the final product’s functionality, efficiency, usability, and effectiveness.
After being successfully tested and verified by the QA team regarding all vital requirements for your application and the user experience it provides, your taxi booking app is finally ready to launch. The application should be agreed upon by the store you choose, as some problems may occur at this stage, too. This is why it is always easier to ask a third-party app to take care of distribution on platforms like App Store or Google Play.
You have to design two apps, one for customers or passengers and the other for the driver, when you develop a taxi booking app. Also, an admin panel must be designed so the cab rental owner can manage all the taxi booking operations. Let’s have a closer look at the must-have features:
Entering the drop location is an essential feature so that the cab booking app will know the passenger’s destination; with your ‘where to’ location, the taxi booking app will show you your next ride’s estimated time and cost.
Once you enter the correct ‘where to’ location, the app will ask you to confirm the ride to find the nearest driver, and the drop location is later followed by the live GPS tracking in-app feature for both the driver and the passenger.
Scheduling a ride is one of the essential features of any taxi booking app. It enables the passenger to book their rides well in advance, which makes them feel more secure about their cab timings. It also allows you to manage your time for the next meeting.
Another important feature should be integrated with a taxi booking app. The choose a vehicle and select ride type’ feature enables the passenger to choose their car at their convenience.
For example, Uber provides a ride type from which to choose. The premium ride type has a luxurious car and a good interior compared to the Uber Go ride type.
Similarly, Ola enables passengers to choose from the available list of vehicles as per their requirements.
The next essential feature is integrating the ‘Confirm and Cancel ride’ feature into a taxi book app. After selecting the drop location, the passenger must confirm the ride by clicking the confirm ride button.
And, if there are any changes in their plans, they can cancel the ride by giving a suitable reason. Uber charges a fixed fee for canceling the ride after a particular time.
The ‘Live GPS tracking’ feature helps the driver reach the correct location.
In-app map integration tracks the drop location, enabling the passenger and driver to check the map and follow it to reach their destination by taking the safest route.
It is one of the great route tracking and guiding features you should integrate into your taxi booking app.
This is a very important feature to check the performance of your application. Reviews and ratings are great ways to help the driver get their deserved rating and feedback from the passengers. The same goes for the passengers. There is a whole history of ride-sharing that lets the drivers and the customers know each other via in-app ratings and feedback.
The advanced features for taxi booking apps that you can add to your application to travel that extra mile of perfection.
This feature lets you arrive on time for important events and appointments. Also, it allows you to book your rides 30 days prior. With this feature, the passengers can attend their functions, interviews, and meetings on time. Adding this advanced feature to your taxi booking application can attract more users.
A mobile wallet is an amazing feature that gives a big relief when paying after a ride. You are saved with struggles like having no change or adding credit/debit card details every time after a ride. Uber supports mobile wallets, in which you need to add funds once, and then your ride charges are deducted after each ride, so you can have a hassle-free ride without worrying about paying after the ride.
In any emergency or situation of distress, there is a panic button that acts as a savior and should be on the list of advanced features for taxi booking apps to assure your users about their safety from our side.
This button works as follows: a help button leads us to the SOS or emergency window, which shows the option to call the police or withdraw the emergency drill.
This feature is inevitable in the advanced features of taxi booking apps as it can become a source for retaining more customers. You can offer additional services by adding a site credit for referring to new users and dias asndiscountsmo codes for getting a reward.
Users can add their favorite location to visit there and avoid entering details every time. This lets the passenger quickly book rides when they are getting late.
This is one of the best features to integrate into your taxi booking app, as it helps you to select fellow riders by adding contacts from your phone. Then, the fare will be split based on their drop-off location or equally distributed among the riders.
This will be very convenient for users as they can book rides for their loved ones. Uber has integrated this feature into their app, and all you have to do is book a cab, add a contact number, pick up location, and drop off location, and you are good to go.
This feature enables drivers to accept tips from the riders through the app, and you can pay the desired amount. This feature can hold more and more drivers to be engaged with the application.
This feature becomes necessary for any application to ensure the user trusts your services. They need assurance before opting for any service and maintain that you can add this feature to your taxi booking app to solve their problems anytime.
This is one of the most interesting features as it enables users to enter their destinations so only those rides are matched for those drives. This makes it convenient for drivers to accept rides at their convenience.
This feature can be integrated to deal with problems such as long pick-up times or cancellations amidst long pick-ups. Adding such a feature can tackle such issues and enable the driver to earn more.
Let’s have a look at the best taxi booking apps and their unique features.
This was launched back in 2009 by Garrett Camp. Uber is available in around 630 cities and continues to expand to new locations. 2019 Uber purchased Careem, a taxi booking app operating in the Middle East, for $3.1 billion.
Uber’s service has a range of categories that suit every user’s requirements and budget. These include UberPool, UberX, UberGo, UberBlack, and more. Uber has evolved a lot in the past few years.
Uber Technologies has raised more than $22 billion in funds for its taxi booking app development.
The Lyft app was launched in 2012. Earlier, it operated under Zimride, a ridesharing service connecting drivers and passengers via Facebook for long distances.
The Lyft taxi booking app is considered a competitor of Uber and is present in 200+ cities in the US market. The unique feature of Lyft is its rating system, which only keeps drivers with the best ratings.
Also, Lyft’s taxi application has liability insurance of $1 million. Apart from that, Lyft is considered cheaper than Uber; you can expect to pay around $12 compared to $16.
Gett taxi booking app operates in 100+ cities in the US and Europe. The benefits of the Gett app are the ability to book your ride two weeks in advance and the provision of 24*7 passenger support.
The Gett app does not have surge pricing and only charges a 10% commission fee for each ride. It is known that Volkswagen Group invested $300 million in launching the service in the European market.
LeCab is a private transportation service offering cab services with flexible booking options via a mobile app and the web. Today, LeCab has more than 1 million users, 7,000 corporate clients, and more than 13,000 drivers, and it is present in 24 cities in France. They offer the best experience on the market with the top drivers at the best price.
Mobile app and the web. Today, LeCab has more than 1 million users, 7,000 corporate clients, and more than 13,000 drivers, and it is present in 24 cities in France. They offer the best experience on the market with the top drivers at the best price.
This taxi mobile app provides many ride options and payment possibilities (a card, cash, Grab credits).
The passenger can choose GrabTaxi, GrabShare, GrabHitch, GrabBike, or GrabFamily as their mobility service. On average, the user can expect to pay $5 per ride.
The passenger can choose GrabTaxi, GrabShare, GrabHitch, GrabBike, or GrabFamily as their mobility service. On average, the user can expect to pay $5 per ride.
- The Backend
- App Development for Android/IOS
- App Design
The backend is the backbone of an application. A backbone is responsible for the functions of an application and binds them with their respective output. This is the first and foremost stage in the taxi booking app development process. JavaScript and Python are the most popular languages for linking the app to the right interface. Afterward, you must select a database to securely store the app’s data. MySql, PostgreSQL, SQL Server, and Redis are the most widely used. Backend development can be time-consuming and usually requires a lot of resources.
Most of the time, businesses planning to develop a mobile app get confused while selecting the right development platform.
Android and iOS are the most dominant platforms, so the choice comes down to these fabulous options. Businesses can develop apps for both platforms to avoid the dilemma, and this way, they won’t miss out on either user base.
The backend interface for both apps is the same. Only the tools used in the development and the choice of framework are different.
- Build System
- Networking
- Image Loading
- Automation Coding
- Background Services
- Maps
- Gradle
- OkHttp, Volley, Retrofit, and Gson
- Glide
- Espresso
- Services
- Google Maps
- Repository
- Placement and Sizing
- Crash Detection
- Testing
- Storage
- Backend
- Vivo Cab Rider/Vivo Cab Driver (Github)
- UI image extensions/IQ keyboard manager
- Fabric
- Xcode instruments
- Local Preferences/Core Data
- Almoner/Moya/Google Services
The success of your application also depends on its design. It mainly consists of graphics design, user interface, and user experience design, followed by some SEO guidelines.
A whole host of design tools, such as DreamWeaver, Photoshop, and Panic Coda, can be used to design the layout of your app.
Apart from features, various factors are responsible for deciding the overall cost of developing an app like Uber. Let’s have a closer look at them:
Your company type is a significant facet. Are you a startup? Do you wish to build the app alongside your business? Startups may face a tight budget scenario compared to a well-established company.
Your company type is a significant facet. Are you a startup? Do you wish to build the app alongside your business? Startups may face a tight budget scenario compared to a well-established company.
Another important decision to make here is the technology front. You may choose to develop a native app that’s somehow more reasonable than a hybrid one.
You can consult an expert mobile app development service provider if unsure. Experts can simplify your work and help you make the right decisions.
The app development company you hire will use different programming depending on your needs. For developing an app like Uber, the tech team should have expertise in the following programming languages or tools:
- Twilio
- Kotlin for Android app
- Node.js for back-end
- PayPal / Stripe
- Facebook SDK
- APNS
- Google Places
- Card.io
- Elastic email
- Amazon EC2
- Amazon S3
- Google Maps
- Google Directions
- Firebase
- Socket.io
And your app development team must include the following experts:
- Project Manager
- Business Analyst
- Android / iOS engineer
- UI/UX designer
- Back-end developer
- APNSQA engineer
The total cost of app development may vary depending on the size of the team and their experience.
Apart from features, various factors are responsible for deciding the overall cost of developing an app like Uber. Let’s have a closer look at them:
| Feature | Approximate Time | Approximate Cost |
| Payment Integration | 3 to 6 weeks | $6,000+ |
| Geolocation features | 3 to 6 weeks | $6,000+ |
| Ride scheduling | 3 to 6 weeks | $6,000+ |
| Booking a ride for others | 4 to 8 weeks | $8,000+ |
| Split a fare | 4 to 6 weeks | $6,000+ |
| Registration and profile | 2 to 3 weeks | $3,000+ |
| Notifications | 2 to 4 weeks | $4,000+ |
| Ride cost estimation | 1 to 2 weeks | $2,000+ |
| For Back-end (Framework and libraries integration) | 4 to 8 weeks | $8,000+ |
| For Android/iOS (Framework and libraries integration) | 4 to 6 weeks | $6,000+ |
| For Android/iOS (UI/UX development) | 6 to 10 weeks | $12,000+ |
| Total for two apps (Android/iOS) | ~4 to 8 months | ~67,000+ |
Now we know that the craze for the taxi booking business is growing at a faster pace.
In this revolutionized world, it has become quite essential for taxi companies to develop an app like Uber. This could be more profitable for their companies.
To make your app successful, one must strategize properly and initially form a strong base of customers. No business achieves profit in the initial days; it takes a lot of effort and courage.
Technology plays a huge role in every field, so this is the right time to build your taxi booking app for your business.
To accomplish that, you must find reliable taxi app developers and a software development company that can craft your idea of having your taxi booking app into reality.
As a leading Uber-like app development company, we are happy to help you. Contact us today!
FAQs
How much time does it take to create a basic version of the taxi app?
It takes approximately 4-6 months to develop the first version of a taxi app operating on one platform (iOS or Android). This includes client and rider app development, back-end development as well as a basic admin panel. To develop a fully-fledged taxi-hailing system, it is necessary to spend around 8-10 months or even more.
How much does it cost to build an app like Uber?
The cost to develop an app like Uber may range anywhere between $67,000 and $150,000 for one or two user apps (for iOS and Android), respectively.
