Author Topic: The Perfect Taxi App  (Read 42528 times)

Offline U Wha

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The Perfect Taxi App
« on: October 03, 2017, 04:42:37 pm »
I left the taxi game in 2014. Went back to college in 2015, to do a degree in Entrepreneurship at IADT. In 3rd year now, one of my assignments is researching the viability of a potential/proposed business.

I have access to supports, mentors, research. Also have access to other faculties in the college, visual communications, design gaming , app development, animation, graphic design etc. 

I was thinking of doing my assignment on the perfect Irish taxi app. How it should work, how should it be owned, commercial interest, driver owned, what type of driver ownership, CO-OP or PLC.

One of the first steps is to research what drivers and customers want in such an app by way of survey.

Any suggestions on the content of the survey questions would be appreciated.

I will share publish the results of the assignment next may on this forum.

I am back driving a taxi, perfect job for someone in college. I let my licence lapse and had to retake the test 3 times and my insurance is nuts.

For transparency sake I have discussed a driver owned app previously on Roy's Forum. I had proposed 'eircab' as the app name, I have recently registered the domains to make sure they are protected. If such an driver app ever developed legs I would transfer the domains, if it was wanted. I have a some history in establishing a taxi co-op. What ever mistakes were made then by me, I have learnt from them and I honestly believe taxi drivers should control or have influence on how the industry is run. 
« Last Edit: October 03, 2017, 04:46:43 pm by U Wha »

john m

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Re: The Perfect Taxi App
« Reply #1 on: October 03, 2017, 04:53:06 pm »
if your interested in starting an app do one for prostitutes  .You would need millions to compete with UBER or Mytaxi .Dont mind if drivers or customers want another app first do your costs for advertising consider how you will compete with free vouchers from other apps .Dont waste your time .

Offline Rat Catcher

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Re: The Perfect Taxi App
« Reply #2 on: October 03, 2017, 05:05:59 pm »
If we start at the end of the surveys and work backwards, the short answer to all questions from both drivers and passengers will be Hail0.

IMO, it should be a co-operative, and transparently so. All software/servers should be owned/controlled (using AWS would be OK once it's the co-op's account) by the co-op so there is no underlying/background commercial interest. 

I'm a fan of keeping things simple. Forget about pre-bookings. Eliminate the cost of card chargebacks by requiring drivers to hold Sumup accounts, Sumup provides comprehensive APIs so is easy to incorporate in any app. Allocate jobs to the closest driver, etc...

Ericab is an excellent name. Good luck with the assignment.

Offline U Wha

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Re: The Perfect Taxi App
« Reply #3 on: October 03, 2017, 05:09:41 pm »
I haven't got millions to develop or compete against anyone. 20000 taxi drivers or a significant proportion of them can compete against anyone.

If they believed the business/app had their interests at heart with proper structures with no jobs for the boys, most drivers would support it, especially if it cost no more than what they pay Uber or MyTaxi.

What I do have is the next 9 months where I have to research a business proposal and may even get a beta test version of an app up and running through the college. This is something I have been interested in for a long time so why not do it and see where it goes, nothing to lose. if it isn't viable then that is what I say in my assignment report, All good.
« Last Edit: October 03, 2017, 05:19:44 pm by U Wha »

Offline U Wha

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Re: The Perfect Taxi App
« Reply #4 on: October 03, 2017, 05:18:43 pm »
If we start at the end of the surveys and work backwards, the short answer to all questions from both drivers and passengers will be Hail0.

IMO, it should be a co-operative, and transparently so. All software/servers should be owned/controlled (using AWS would be OK once it's the co-op's account) by the co-op so there is no underlying/background commercial interest. 

I'm a fan of keeping things simple. Forget about pre-bookings. Eliminate the cost of card chargebacks by requiring drivers to hold Sumup accounts, Sumup provides comprehensive APIs so is easy to incorporate in any app. Allocate jobs to the closest driver, etc...

Ericab is an excellent name. Good luck with the assignment.

Absolutely agree Rats. I believe drivers should have control. Start with simple app that can evolve with driver approval. If drivers supported it then a big marketing budget isn't required. Drivers use their own app and don't support the others then customers will migrate to where they can get a taxi. Drivers promote their own business.

Offline watty

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Re: The Perfect Taxi App
« Reply #5 on: October 03, 2017, 05:23:13 pm »
There was a thread on Whistle Taxi App awhile back.  Similar thoughts/ideas to what's proposed here.

Offline Rat Catcher

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Re: The Perfect Taxi App
« Reply #6 on: October 03, 2017, 05:23:46 pm »
Absolutely, there's nothing to lose.

The erm is a negative sort of chap, as you probably know from Roy's. However, he does have a point. You may want to consider what happened to Ride Austin (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41450980) and/or even contact the people involved to get their input. Conversely, Uber is insignificant in Ireland and passengers here haven't really bought into mytaxi's "same crew, logo's new" rebranding so they may well be open to a better alternative.

Offline Rat Catcher

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Re: The Perfect Taxi App
« Reply #7 on: October 03, 2017, 05:28:52 pm »
There was a thread on Whistle Taxi App awhile back.  Similar thoughts/ideas to what's proposed here.


Not sure where that's at now. The fact that it's all very secretive puts me off as does the fact that it's promoted by a taxi rental firm with a fleet of c.50 cars. To be frank, I can't help suspecting that there's underlying commercial intent.

Offline U Wha

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Re: The Perfect Taxi App
« Reply #8 on: October 03, 2017, 05:34:35 pm »
Absolutely, there's nothing to lose.

The erm is a negative sort of chap, as you probably know from Roy's. However, he does have a point. You may want to consider what happened to Ride Austin (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41450980) and/or even contact the people involved to get their input. Conversely, Uber is insignificant in Ireland and passengers here haven't really bought into mytaxi's "same crew, logo's new" rebranding so they may well be open to a better alternative.


Interesting article, big boys came back and knocked them out of the park, driver ownership of the app might prevent that. Very important point about how capacity needs to considered and how to increase it seamlessly as the customer base/demand grows.

Offline U Wha

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Re: The Perfect Taxi App
« Reply #9 on: October 03, 2017, 05:34:58 pm »
There was a thread on Whistle Taxi App awhile back.  Similar thoughts/ideas to what's proposed here.


Cheers

Offline Rat Catcher

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Re: The Perfect Taxi App
« Reply #10 on: October 03, 2017, 07:05:17 pm »

Interesting article, big boys came back and knocked them out of the park, driver ownership of the app might prevent that. Very important point about how capacity needs to considered and how to increase it seamlessly as the customer base/demand grows.


That's what makes AWS the obvious choice, I guess. You can scale up and down pretty much on demand. However, I'd be inclined to talk to Irish ISPs before committing to anything, most have services designed to compete with AWS and smaller firms might be more open to covering more of the mundane server admin tasks for you. I'd definitely talk to www.hostingireland.ie - They host this place which is nothing close to the scale you are considering but their customer service is second to none.
« Last Edit: October 03, 2017, 07:10:37 pm by Rat Catcher »

john m

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Re: The Perfect Taxi App
« Reply #11 on: October 03, 2017, 08:26:58 pm »
Going to do you a favour here U .I am for my sins and Economist so I will give you the economics of a taxi app .It is revenue neutral eg UBER have never made a profit and if you check out Mytaxi revenue returns I doubt they have ever made a profit .

 Like you take out insurance against an accident what the taxi apps are doing is taking out insurance against driverless cars .Mytaxi will reinvest any profits into vouchers and bonus payments for drivers all they are doing is building up a data bank just in case driver less cars ever become popular they WILL NOT .

  I will give you an example of why it will never happen .When they invented the microwave everybody thought that that was the end of cooking ,go into your local supermarket and compare how many ingredients are for sale and how many microwave ready meals are on sale people like to cook and drivers like to drive .There is no profit in a taxi app as that is not why they were invented .

Do yourself a favour and rethink your project this is a bottle of smoke what you think you are seeing is not what exists .

Offline Dr. Martin Gooter Bling

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Re: The Perfect Taxi App
« Reply #12 on: October 03, 2017, 08:45:17 pm »
do you reckon driverless taxis will ever happen john.
do you ever see those autonomous robot vacuums.
Brilliant fuckin idea. One problem though.
You need to live in a palace with no fuckin furniture for the yoke to work.
Creating a solution nobody asked for to a problem that does'nt exist.

Offline U Wha

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Re: The Perfect Taxi App
« Reply #13 on: October 03, 2017, 10:03:04 pm »
Going to do you a favour here U .I am for my sins and Economist so I will give you the economics of a taxi app .It is revenue neutral eg UBER have never made a profit and if you check out Mytaxi revenue returns I doubt they have ever made a profit .

 Like you take out insurance against an accident what the taxi apps are doing is taking out insurance against driverless cars .Mytaxi will reinvest any profits into vouchers and bonus payments for drivers all they are doing is building up a data bank just in case driver less cars ever become popular they WILL NOT .

  I will give you an example of why it will never happen .When they invented the microwave everybody thought that that was the end of cooking ,go into your local supermarket and compare how many ingredients are for sale and how many microwave ready meals are on sale people like to cook and drivers like to drive .There is no profit in a taxi app as that is not why they were invented .

Do yourself a favour and rethink your project this is a bottle of smoke what you think you are seeing is not what exists .

John I know from having read your posts on this forum and on the other one that you have spent a lot time researching and investigating this matter.

I agree as a commerical proposition that it may not succeed or even be viable. However I am not lookng to make a profit. I would be happy to part of it. If it works the it looks great on my CV and at the least I get to work on it from an academic point of view where it can helps me earn my degree and it is something that I am enthusiastic about.

One of the methods for innovation and creativity is to identify the problems and from there solutions can emerge. I say this with the upmost respect, There are no better informed stakebolders capable of identifying problems  than the contributors.on this forum.
« Last Edit: October 03, 2017, 10:09:31 pm by U Wha »

john m

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Re: The Perfect Taxi App
« Reply #14 on: October 03, 2017, 10:56:59 pm »
I am serious when i say create a prostitute app put profiles on the app base it in a European country where prostitution is legal and create false hotel and services to camouflage the real destination of the payment .As a taxi driver i dont know how many times  i have been asked do I know where I can I find
 

 


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