How To Develop A Taxi Booking App? Types, Features, And Cost Estimations

By Author: DC Kumawat
Total Articles: 33
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Hello there, in this blog we will learn about how to develop a taxi booking app including the types, features and cost estimation of the taxi booking app. In addition, we will also discuss factors that affect taxi booking app cost estimations.

What is a Taxi Booking App and How Does it Work

A taxi booking app is a platform that enables customers/users to book a taxi, bike, and car or ride-sharing services from their location to their destination location at affordable prices. The customer just needs to enter the pick-up and drop-off location and wait until the taxi comes. In short, the taxi booking app transforms the traditional way of waiting for a taxi for hours into an efficient, fast and user-friendly digital experience.

A taxi booking app is operated in two ways: passenger and driver. A passenger mode, in which the passenger books a ride, tracks the route of the taxi, views the driver's profile and pays the money right from the app. A driver mode in which the driver accepts the rides uses the live map navigation to reach the destination, gets information about the passenger and receives the payment.

Types ...
... of Taxi Booking App

Basically, there are two types of taxi booking apps:

➢Dedicated Taxi Booking App
➢Taxi Aggregator App

Dedicated Taxi Booking App

The committed taxi booking app is a sweet fit for trade that now has a built-up taxi business. A taxi booking app allows them to make their business faster and easier. This way they take their business online, makes easy for their customers to access the taxi services. The deal directly happens between passenger and taxi services without any third-party interference.

The passenger only needs to enter the pick-up location and drop-off location. The passenger also chooses the preferred vehicle (car, bike, and auto) and other details. The taxi service dispatches a driver with your preferred vehicle who drops them at their drop-off location at predetermined charges.

Taxi Aggregator App

On the other hand, the Taxi aggregator app connects passengers and drivers through various taxi companies. The app allows a taxi business or individual taxi owners to register their vehicles and offer taxi services to needy passengers. This app works as a third party between taxi drivers and passengers.

The algorithm inside the app determines the charges and then the company takes some percentage of it as a profit. Basically, these types of apps earn money through commission. There are two types of taxi aggregator apps: Simple Taxi Booking App and On Demand Taxi Booking App.

Simple Taxi Booking App

A simple taxi booking app is as straightforward as its name and does not require a server. There is only one app for the drivers and passengers where driver can enlist their services and the passenger uses these services directly from the app.

On-Demand Taxi Booking App

An on-demand taxi booking app requires a server. There are two apps required in this model one for taxi drivers and the other for passengers. The app model requires a higher budget compared to others. This provides taxis when needed and has many more advanced features than a simple taxi booking app.

Features Must Have in a Taxi Booking App

For every application to succeed there is a hand of their app features and functionality. The cost of the app also depends on the features any app has the more features the more is the cost of developing an app. Features of a taxi booking app categories in 3 parts:

➢ App for Passengers
➢ App for Taxi Driver
➢ Admin Panel

App for Passengers

App for passengers must include these features and functionality:

1. Passenger Registration and Verification

The passenger registration and verification feature is used to create and access the details of passengers. This feature is important to maintain the passenger’s security.

2. Ride Booking

The Ride Booking feature allows passengers to book a ride for them. Here passengers select their pick-up and drop-off location, preferred vehicle, and payment method.

3. Real-time GPS Tracking

The real-time GPS tracking feature allows passengers to track their rides and see the approximate time of arrival of the driver. This feature also ensures the safety of passengers.

4. Driver Information

The driver information feature allows passengers to see the driver details including name and photo of the driver, number and name of the vehicle. This feature enables the passengers to verify that they are getting into the correct vehicle.

5. in-app Communication

This in-app communication feature allows passengers to call the driver without sharing their personal information like phone number.

6. Fare Estimation

The fare estimation feature helps to provide the estimated charges to the passengers for their ride in advance. This helps in avoiding any issues when it comes to payment.

7. Payment

The payment feature gives various payment methods like debit cards, credit cards, UPI, Gpay, PhonePe, Paytm and mobile wallets to passengers for making payments directly through the app. Also, have the option to make payments through cash. It is important to ensure safe and secure payment processing through the taxi booking app.

8. Ride History

The ride history feature maintains the past rides, ratings, and payment history of the passengers. This feature helps the passengers monitor their past rides and payments which simplifies the management of their expenses.

9. Promo code

The promo code feature helps the passenger to fill in a code from the drop-down list to get discounts.

10. Push Notifications

The push notifications feature helps the passengers by alerting them about the ride confirmation, taxi’s location and arrival time of the taxi driver.

11. Feedback and Ratings

The feedback and ratings feature allows passengers to share their experience with the ride and driver.

App for Taxi Driver

App for taxi drivers must include these features and functionality:

1. Driver Registration and Verification

The driver registration and verification feature is used to create and access the details of drivers. After registration, the driver will get approval from the admin to offer their services on the platform.

2. Personal Driver Profile

The personal Driver profile feature helps drivers to customize their personal information like name, photo, address, and phone number.

3. Earnings Tracking and Management

The earning tracking and management feature helps the drivers track their ride history and earnings. They can withdraw their earnings directly through the app. This feature gives transparency to the driver about everything and helps to control the earnings and manage their finance effectively.

4. Ride Acceptance Preferences

The Ride acceptance feature allows drivers to set their ride preferences based on some factors like location, distance, passenger rating and fare. This helps drivers to accept the only request that is best suited for them.

5. Live Map Navigation

The live map navigation feature provides alternative route suggestions, real-time traffic updates, and turn-by-turn navigation to the driver. This feature ensures that the driver comes to the designated location as soon as possible.

6. In-app Communication

The in-app communication feature helps the driver to call the passenger if required after a ride is booked.

7. Ride Cancellation

The ride cancellation feature helps the driver to cancel the ride if they run into issues during the car rides. There are several reasons like trouble with the engine, if passengers get aggressive and damage the vehicle, and many more.

8. Push Notifications.

The push notifications feature helps the drivers by alerting them about the new rides, passenger’s location and other features regarding the app.

9. Ride History

The ride history feature helps the driver to monitor their past rides and a payment which simplifies the management of their total rides in a day, week, and month.

10. Customer Rating

The customer rating feature helps the driver to rate the customer according to their behavior. Once another driver sees any passenger with a low rating can’t accept their ride and go on their own way.

Admin Panel

The admin panel must include these features and functionality:

1. Driver Management

The driver management feature helps the admin manage the information regarding drivers including verification, approval, and deactivation and blocking of a driver.

2. Complaint Management

The complaint management feature helps the admin manage the complaint raised by any passenger or driver.

3. Passenger Management

The passenger management feature helps the admin to improve the user experience of passengers.

4. Access to All Trip Records

The access to all trip details feature helps the admin to keep a record of all trip details that are booked, active and completed.

5. Live Driver Tracking

The live driver tracking record feature helps the admin to keep track of the locations of vehicles, drivers and passengers.

6. Send Notifications

The send notification feature helps the admin to send notifications regarding new features to the driver and passenger.

7. Revenue Management

The revenue management feature helps the admin to track and manage the transitions made by passengers and revenue paid to drivers.

8. Analytics and Reports

The analytics and reports feature helps an admin to track the driver’s activities, revenue and every moment of a driver with real-time data.

9. Offers and discount

The offers and discounts feature helps the admin to manage the offers and discounts given to passengers.

Factors Affecting Taxi Booking App Cost Estimations

The cost of a taxi booking app is not fixed it depends on various factors and features you want in your app. In this topic, we will discuss the factors affecting taxi booking app cost estimations.

1. Platform You Choose

The platform you choose affects your budget as different platform has different requirements and features. There are three options Android, iOS, and both. The third option is best, as nowadays many individuals utilize both platforms. This will increase your app users which directly increases your revenue.

2. Technology Stack

The technology used for the app significantly impacts your budget for app development. The main objective is choosing the right tech stack for the needs of your app. There are many alternatives available, but be careful and choose wisely to keep the app's architecture simple and easy. For security, implementing robust security measures is equally important.

3. App Design

Users are picky, for switching them to another app only needs a tap. Therefore your app must be easy to use and app design must be simple and trouble-free to keep your clients and ensure their excitement. However, the increasing quality and features of an app also increase app development costs. By hiring experienced UI/UX experts you can solve this problem.

4. Integration of Third-Party Services

As you develop a taxi booking app for any platform, you will have to make use of various third-party services like payment options, quick SMS verification and many more. Each addition of services increases the cost of app development.

5. Backend Complexity

The finalized features added to your application will affect the complexity of the backend, even if your app is simple and easy to use. Still, you have to manage payment platforms, in-app chatting, location data, and many more features that will increase the cost of app development.

6. Application Testing

Before making it available to the public, your app must be error-free. You may variously test your app, but it increases the time and budget. That is up to you, but remember more testing will result in better functionality.

7. Geographical Location of the App Development Company

The location of the mobile app development company also affects your budget for app development. Different region's developers have different charges.

➔ Indian developers charge between $30 and $80 per hour.
➔ East-West developers charge between $80 and $150 per hour.
➔ US developers charge between $150 to $250 per hour.

8. Modifications and Updates

Before the app launches, various things need investment including ongoing maintenance, bug fixes, updates, feature enhancement and many more. This will also increase the budget of your app development but will ensure that the app remains capable of any kind of future technology.

Estimated Cost for Developing a Taxi Booking App

As we discussed above, the development cost of a taxi booking app depends on various factors like features, complexity and many more. Typically the average cost of a taxi app development varies from $40,000 to $50,000.The Estimated costs according to the features of a taxi development app are as follows:

➔ The estimated cost of developing a basic taxi app is between $20,000 to $30,000.
➔ The estimated cost of a Medium Complex taxi app is between $30,000 to $50,000.
➔ The estimated cost of a large or customized taxi app is above $50,000.

Final Takeaways

From above mentioned article you all get an idea that a taxi app development process is time, effort, and money demanding and difficult. However, the proper guidance, strategy and team of experienced professionals make the process easier and more time-effective.

If you also have a similar idea or business, Connect with a reputed Taxi App Development Company In India and make yourself free for other valuable jobs of your business.