It has been several years since taxi booking apps have forayed and their popularity is massively mushrooming. Conventional taxi service providers couldn’t agree more their market is diminishing.
Cab refusal, overcharging and nuisance were just some of the problems addressed by on-demand taxi apps like Uber. And from this day forward, there rolled out a train of taxi apps meeting the budding passenger’s needs.
Of many reading this blog to reckon the taxi app development cost let us make it clear the cost has its total dependency on the feature set and third-party integrations. And before developing an app like Uber, one needs a deep understanding of its business & revenue model, technical considerations and competitors as well. So, let’s explore in detail the diverse taxi app development essentials.
Business Model of Taxi Booking App
There are three major types of business model of taxi app-
- Aggregator Model
- Ownership Model
- Revenue Generation Model
Aggregator Model
Under this business model, the cab aggregators partner with cab operators to provide rides on request. The aggregator receives a commission from operators on each ride that occurs and apart from this, the cab operator also pays a fee for leveraging the conveniences of the technology platform. Popular taxi-hailing companies like Uber, Gett, Ola works on the same model.
Ownership Model
This model works best for taxi fleet owner-operators. Riders can book the taxi from their taxi booking app by entering the pick-up and drop-off location and enjoy the ride as the taxi operator arrives and take them to the destination. This model does not have any middlemen like Uber. The taxi operator is only liable for paying drivers and other operational costs like fuel, maintenance charges of cabs and technology platforms.
Revenue Generation Model
Other than the two models discussed above, the additional source of revenues that can be taken into consideration by app development companies are:
- Surge pricing at peak demand
- Different prices for the range of car models
- Extra service charge for chauffeurs and premium cars
- Costs for extra luggage on the trip
- Charging a certain rate on per mile basis
- Imposing charges on waiting time of the driver
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How To Create A Taxi Booking App: Steps To Follow
- Conduct A Market Research
Foraying into the market without gathering the insights is no less than shooting arrows in the dark. Ensure that you study the market, gather facts and figures, analyze them, and ultimately draft your own conclusion. While exploring the market for a taxi booking app, pay heed on the following checkpoints:
- What is the actual demand of your target audience?
- Have you chosen the right geographical area?
- Will you be able to gather the required resources?
- What payment mode will be suitable for your target audience?
- Is your taxi booking app idea capable enough to beat the market competition?
And there can be a huge list of questions that you need to figure out at this stage. Ensure that you are simplifying the idea and making your app stand out in the market. In case, if you are standing on the same lines as your competitors then you won't be able to pull out desired market results.
- Choose A Suitable Business Model
Selecting the right business model will decide the performance of your app in the market. It will include a decision on a few things like the type of monetization strategy, the structure of the app, the type of services offered, integration of third-party platforms i.e. payment, GPS, and more.
Deciding on these many factors will help you to streamline your taxi app development process. Pre-planning your strategies and having an idea of what can be done is always a good decision that eliminates unnecessary errors and things.
- Consider Technical Requirements And Specifications
Now, when you are done with the business model, you need to decide on the list of technical tools that will be used in your development process. Consider deciding the technical structure and architecture that you are going to integrate with your app. This decision will be done in the presence of a technical team who have thorough knowledge and experience or either you can also go for outsourcing a few resources to decide. After this stage, you will be able to understand the cost estimation, the development time, and the success rate of your taxi app.
- Decide The Best Resources To Work
This stage is again a critical phase because selecting the resources that would be carrying out the whole development process is not easy. You need to understand your team size, expertise, experience, and geographical location. Moreover, prepare a list of technical requirements and select team members like no. as developers, UI//UX designers, QA testers, project managers, etc. Ascertain that selecting people will be the most critical stage of the whole process because individual experts charge their own costs on an hourly basis. Best option is to hire a mobile app development company where you will get bundled expertise in transport and automotive industry.
- Supervise UI/UX Team With Your Brand’s Motive
This stage is essential because here you can actually visualize how your taxi booking app will look and how the design should align as per your vision. You need to start this process before moving on to the actual development. The UI/UX designers will understand the brand vision, goal and strategy and come up with different mock-ups and wireframes. So, you need to make pre-discussions and plan every minute detail of the design beforehand.
- Stepping Up With Backend Development
As the name suggests that backend process means the backbone of the whole development strategy. The developers are responsible to bind all the functions of the app and their outputs. This stage has to be perfect because the whole foundation is dependent on it. Most languages used in the app development process are JavaScript and Python. But there can be other languages as well based on the app requirements.
- Directing The Testing Process
This is probably the last stage of the app where the QA testing team will use various tools to understand the performance of the apps. The usability, functionality, efficiency, quality, and effectiveness will be checked in multiple environments. This step must be part of the development process because launching without going through the testing process can create blunders and a single error can ruin your efforts.
- The App Launch
After testing, you are good to go! Now you can easily release and launch your app in the market. Take the feedback from your customers and work on it. Also, the post launch maintenance and updates should not fall from the cracks.
