How Mobile Apps Drive Change in Taxi Industry? Five handy apps for booking a ride. As someone who travels almost constantly, I find myself routinely needing taxis or limos in unfamiliar cities. Thankfully, there are quite a few smartphone apps that can be used to arrange for ground transportation. This article lists five such apps. Before we get started, I want to pass along one bit of advice: It's a good idea to check the geographic service area prior to downloading an app. Many of the apps that are available work only in specific countries or specific cities. I have tried to put together a list of apps that are as versatile as possible, but one does have significant geographic restrictions — although I had a special reason for including it.
Note: This article is also available as an image gallery and a video hosted by TechRepublic columnist Tom Merritt. 1: Uber Uber (Figure A) is a wildly popular alternative to taxi service in many cities. Figure A The Uber app is available for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. 2: Easy Taxi Figure B 3: mytaxi Figure C Figure D 5: WOW Taxi. Apps poised to drive change in taxi industry. 'Imagine needing a $400,000 licence for the right to serve someone a cup of coffee.' Photo: Rob Homer Work's done, you've left the building, you're standing on a street corner, and you want to get home.
But home is half the city away, the trains are not working, it is the middle of the week and you can't justify the cost of a taxi. Now the rain has started, you know the cat is at home with anxiety issues, and you really don't want to have to wait for that bus to arrive and to wind its interminable way through the suburbs. So you press a button on your phone. "Street Y in suburb X" is where you want to go. Within a minute or so, a car pulls up at the corner. You have never met before, but the driver works just near you and lives in the street next to yours. The driver was heading home anyway with four empty seats in the car when their phone beeped to tell them someone nearby wanted a lift to exactly where they were going.
They stopped partly because they are a good Samaritan. The future of taxi-hailing apps. Over the past two months, two major taxi-hailing apps received new rounds of funding – in December, Baidu announced an investment in Uber while SoftBank, Alibaba Group and Tiger Global committed US$600 million to KuaiDi Dache.
However, the growth of such apps face many hurdles. Firstly, legal concerns. China’s Ministry of Transport also announced bans on taxi-hailing apps for private cars without taxi licenses last month, which would theoretically place limits on the growth of taxi-hailing apps. While Uber has been pushing for legislation in some US states to identify them as “transportation network companies” that can operate under certain sets of rules, legislation in other parts of the world may not been passed.
For example, taxi-hailing apps like Uber are seen as illegal by Spain, Canada and Thailand. Secondly, there remains the question of how much room is available in the market for a variety of big and small competitors characteristic of healthy competition. What happens when app-makers work with the taxi industry, not against it. This process could get a lot more efficient — and it would help the taxi industry survive. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg) Over the past few years, the most disruptive innovation in transportation has been sharing: Smartphone apps like Uber, Lyft, and Sidecar match up riders and people with cars in a seamless experience that cuts out entrenched taxi companies altogether.
But a whole other suite of apps are using similar technology to strengthen the regulated cab industry, rather than go around it. Most emerging companies in the for-hire transportation space aren’t working with average Joes who drive in their spare time, like UberX does. Rather, they’re serving established taxi fleets that realize they need to replace their outdated phone-based dispatch system. These companies advertise their compliance with regulations as a feature, not a bug. Boasts Curb, formerly known as TaxiMagic: “Every time you ride with Curb you’ll ride with a fully licensed, insured driver.
Maybe. The Rise and Rise of Taxi Apps - How they Benefit both Drivers and Customers. Taxi apps are increasingly becoming a part of the way we call a taxi and rightly so. Since the arrival of the first of these apps in the UK we’ve seen a significant change in the way business is being done and far greater ease getting a taxi when needs be. So, let’s take a closer look at how these apps benefit people and also in a lot of ways taxi drivers. Speed One of the major positives of the taxi app is down to the speed of finding a taxi. Simply, enter the app and it will find and order a taxi to your location, using your GPS as a way of finding you. The amazing thing is that instead of having to wait, flag down (possibly fail to do so) and get into a vehicle, the taxi app does most of that for you.
It simply will notify the nearest free taxi in your vicinity of your presence and order it to come collect you using your GPS coordinates – not having to give the drive instructions. Recommended for YouWebcast: Agile Marketing: Pour Gas on Your Growth Fire App How Taxi Apps Utilise GPS. Taxi Booking Apps Making Life Uber Easy One ‘Tap’ At a Time – bizsofttech. Imagine it is cold, windy and you’re in a hurry to reach your destination. You don’t see signs of any public conveyance and the prospect of walking to the nearest bus/train stop is far from attractive. What do you do? In the past, a situation like this would have either forced you to wait out the terrible weather or brace it to find your way home.
Today, you can simply tap an app on your smart phone that brings a taxi literally at your footsteps to drive you at your destination. One of the greatest technological disruptions has taken place in the transit sector, especially, in the taxi travel space. Organizations like Uber and Lyft have changed the way we reach from point A to B. After the launch of Uber, many players have entered the mobile application-based taxi and car service hailing systems. Let us take a look at two of the major advantages that taxi apps offer to both the passengers and drivers. Drivers also benefit by the use of such apps. So, where are you going next? Like this: