How to develop on demand taxi app like Uber?

Uber-like app development has become an inspiration for all the on-demand apps.

The reason behind this inspiration among the various industries is the success of the Uber app.

As stated by the Uber company, the revenue growth of 3rd quarter of 2019 is 30% up from 14% of 2nd quarter 2019.

The success of Uber is dedicated to-

Without powerful mobile apps, the Uber couldn’t grab this success. Mobile apps are the face of your business when it comes to an on-demand taxi app like Uber.

If you fail at mobile app user experience, you fail as a business.

Let’s begin with everything that you need to develop a successful on-demand taxi app like Uber.

Uber-like on-demand taxi app features

You need to have three mobile apps- one for passengers, one for drivers, and one for you/admins.

Passenger app features for Uber-like app

Let’s have a look at the features of the passenger mobile app-

1. Book a ride now

The most essential and basic feature of an on-demand taxi mobile app is a “Book a Ride Now” feature.

With this feature, your passengers can book their preferable ride instantly. The passengers need to select their pick-up location, their destination location and the type of taxi they’re looking to hire.

2. Schedule a ride

Your passengers value a lot if they know you value their time. Hence, this advanced feature like, “Schedule a ride” in your cab service app, ensures your passengers don’t need to wait for their cab to arrive.

A killer user-experience feature for an Uber-like on-demand cab service app!

3. Book a ride for others

Unexpected things can happen at any time, anywhere. Being into the cab booking service industry, you need to be prepared for this.

Allow your passengers to help each other by booking a cab for others with this feature. You won’t fail as a business owner; we assure you that.

4. Geolocation

Allow your passengers to pinpoint where they want their drivers to be picked up and dropped off with this geolocation feature.

Any on-demand mobile app fails without this feature. So, make sure you consider this while developing an Uber-like on-demand app.

5. Fare estimation

When your passengers are looking to book a ride now or later, provide them with the fare estimation based on the type of vehicle and the destination location they choose.

This fair estimation feature helps your passengers know how much they would need to pay for their ride.

6. Different payment modes

Every customer has different preferences regarding the type of payment they want to make. It could be either cash, using mobile wallets or credit/debit cards.

Provide as many payment modes as you can to your customers to make sure they’re happy riding with you.

7. Integration to popular mobile wallets

Today, most product or service-based eCommerce businesses support mobile wallets that are quite famous among their existing customers and prospects.

Hence, it’s advisable to integrate most-popular mobile wallets to allow your passengers to make payments in their preferable wallets.

8. Tracking drivers

Today, one of the most important features for an on-demand app is to track their driver or delivery.

This feature provides real-time tracking of a driver which helps your passengers to know how much time will it take for their drivers to reach. Needless to say, this feature enhances your customer experience to a great extent.

9. Driver profile, review & ratings

People don’t like to travel with strangers. Being into the cab service industry, you need to value the likings of your customers. Hence, allowing your passengers to view the public profile of your drivers, their reviews, and ratings.

Looking at the driver’s profile, your customers will come to know how good their driver is.

Also, based on the experience of their trips, your passengers can provide reviews and ratings to the drivers they’ve traveled with.

10. Multiple drop-off points

People love to share their rides with their friends and colleagues falling in the same route. For such passengers, having a feature like multiple drop-off points can encourage people to choose your Uber-like app compared to your competitors’.

Allow your passengers to add, edit or remove the multiple drop-offs even while traveling. This feature can make your app the most favorite among your customers.

11. Panic button (SOS)

Today, safety has become a huge concern, and people want every business to care for them in every way possible.

Uber has this feature, which is easily accessible on the home screen. This feature allows customers to connect with the first responders whenever they need emergency assistance during their trip.

Hence, it becomes vital for you to have this panic button in your on-demand taxi app.

12. In-app chat or call feature

A chat or call feature is an essential feature for every on-demand mobile app because it allows your customers to communicate with the drivers or delivery professionals.

Your customers can make a call through the app or chat within the same so that communication becomes easier and faster. This feature ultimately improves the user experience.

13. Save destinations (home, work, etc.)

Using this on-demand mobile app feature, your passengers can save their most frequently visiting locations such as home, work, and more in your app.

So, they don’t have to exclusively type such locations every time they’re looking to book a ride. This feature is one step above the essentials.

14. Trip history

Well, this is one of the most important cab booking app features for passengers. Your passengers need to know about their past trip histories including drivers they’d travelled with, date, day or time, and more.

With one click you can provide such information to your passengers on your on-demand taxi app like Uber.

Driver app features for Uber-like app

Let’s have a look at the features of the taxi driver mobile app-

1. Accept a ride

The drivers have the option to accept a ride whenever they receive the ride requests. During their existing trips or hunting for trips, whenever the driver gets a trip requests, the driver has the option to either accept it or reject it.

Your Uber-like driver app must have this feature.

2. Route optimization

Route optimization is one feature of the Uber-like cab booking app that helps the drivers to take the best route to reach a destination faster.

This feature of the driver’s mobile app allows the drivers to change their navigation to take the most efficient route.

3. Quest earnings

Uber has this feature named, “Uber Quest” where the company allows their drivers to earn some more money when they finish a pre-defined number of rides in a certain amount of time.

You can consider it as some Quest Earning feature which you can include as incentives for your drivers to stay productive and take up more rides.

This feature provides a win-win situation for both the company and the driver.

4. Notifications for drivers

You must have a feature like notifications to provide some information on the latest feature upgrades, announcements, and more in your driver mobile app.

This feature provides quick access for the drivers to stay updated with the latest news by your company.

5. Driver referral

A driver referral is a program that you can run to encourage your existing drivers to refer some more drivers to increase your driver database and grow your business.

You can make it easier for your drivers to refer new drivers through a feature in their mobile app.

6. Trip history

Your driver’s mobile app must include a feature that showcases the history of the trips a driver has fulfilled.

For analyzing each of their trips and planning more trips can become easy for your drivers with this app feature.

7. Go online

Allow your drivers to choose when to take up rides and when not to. This is only possible with a feature called “Go Online.”

Your drivers can tap on this feature to start getting ride requests and tap this feature again to stop getting the requests.

When your drivers have all the leisure to work, they will enjoy working with you.

8. Status bar

The status bar is an advanced feature of an on-demand taxi app like Uber, where drivers get a status whenever they enter in a busy area.

With this status bar, your drivers can choose whether they should continue going into that busy area or should stop.

9. Earnings tab

Earning tab in the driver’s mobile app helps drivers to see how much they’ve earned in a particular day, week or month.

Using this feature, drivers can plan their next day, week or month to grab more earnings.

10. Trip planner

The trip planner is an effective feature that tells the driver about the hourly trends and preferences. Based on this feature, the driver can plan their day efficiently to earn more.

11. Driver app basics

All your drivers might not be aware of how to operate their driver mobile app, and hence, it comes under your essentials to help them easily get started with the same.

Hence, the driver app basics feature is a guide which the drivers can access to clarify their concepts of using the app easily and instantly within the app.

12. Boost area

Your business and even your drivers’ business highly depends on your mobile app. And, if it loses internet connection, the earnings are likely to affect.

Hence, while creating an app like Uber, you need to consider a feature that helps the app running even in low internet connectivity.

13. Reviews & ratings

Just like the passenger app, drivers’ mobile app has the feature of reviewing and rating the passengers. It helps other drivers to understand the passengers they’re going to pick-up and drop.

Admin app features for Uber-like app

The one which is for you as an admin can be customized based on how easy you want the user-experience of handling, managing, and controlling the other apps, bookings, resources, and revenues.

Things to keep in mind while building Uber-like app

You’ve got a complete list of features you must have in an on-demand taxi app like Uber. Now, it’s time to make sure you have an incomparable user-experience of your apps.

How can you do that? By following things in mind while developing an on-demand taxi app,

1. Perfect UX strategy

UX stands for the user experience, and you need a fail-proof strategy to plan an entire user experience of your mobile apps.

Everything from planning the design, messaging to how people will interact on your apps will be planned right from the beginning. Make sure you have the right mobile app strategists for the same.

Here is the step-by-step guide to creating the perfect UX strategy for your on-demand mobile app like Uber-

2. Interactive UI design

UI stands for user interface, which is the communication taking place between users and app. So, your mobile app UI needs to be engaging and interactive enough to help your users travel within your app easily and amazingly.

3. Uninterrupted navigation

While moving from one step to another in your app, your users should have a consistent experience.

A single breakdown and you’ve lost your customer interests forever. So, make sure your navigation is powerful.

4. Right graphics & visuals

You might have seen the tiny cars moving in Uber’s app. That comes under this section.

So, get the right graphics and visuals to place within your app to make it a cool app for your users to adopt.

5. Flawless real-time tracking

An on-demand app is a failure without real-time tracking functionality. When you use this feature in your driver as well as the mobile app, test it even on the higher load times so that it never breaks.

Keep these five things in mind while creating an on-demand app like Uber.

How much does it cost to build an app like Uber?

Now comes the most important question that arises among the most startup owners looking to build an Uber-like app.

You need to first understand what factors drive the cost of Uber-like app development. And, here are they-

1. Features

The number of features and the complexity to make them work flawlessly even during difficult times affect the cost of your Uber-like app development.

2. Platforms – iOS and Android

The cost of the app development differs based on the platform you choose to develop on. For example,

3. Technology

Uber uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) for fraud detection, risk assessment, safety processes, matching drivers and riders, route optimization, driver onboarding, and more.

Also, the app uses Machine Learning (ML) for forecasting various predictions such as demand and supply, customer support, and more.

So, if you use such technologies in developing Uber-like app then the cost increases, and if you don’t, the cost reduces.

4. Resources

The cost of Uber-like app development also depends on the resources you use. For example, app development strategists, designers, developers, testers, QAs, and more.

Cost range of Uber-like app development

The cost of building an Uber-like app differs as per your customization.

How long will it take to make an app like Uber?

After cost, this becomes a very crucial question among the startup owners looking to develop an on-demand taxi app.

Now, the time to develop an Uber-like app depends on various factors-

1. The way you hire your resources

If you hire different resources such as designers, developers and others from different platforms and want them to work in sync, can take up a huge amount of time. Instead, if you hire an app development company, the time to develop an on-demand app decreases to a great extent.

2. The complexities of building the app

If you want to implement some functionalities such as AI, ML or anything that requires complex architecture, the time to build the app increases.

Time range of Uber-like app development

This app development time may differ if there is,

How to choose the right Uber-like app development company?

So, if you aspire to become successful like Uber, you need to have the right team of strategists, decision-makers, employees, and the app development company.

You might have a different plan in hiring the right strategists, decision-makers, and employees. But, when it comes to hiring the on-demand app development company, you need to identify whether the company,

1. Understands your business & industry well

Find out whether the company you’re looking to hire is having enough knowledge about how your business model works and understanding how competitive it is.

Also, check whether the company has built an on-demand app earlier.

On-demand food delivery app, NowOpen, developed by TriState Technology

2. Has in-depth knowledge of development trends

The app development company must have expertise on how to build on-demand apps with the right kind of resources, processes, and methods.

3. Suggests you the best

It’s about your business where you’re going to invest a lot to become successful. Hence, you need an on-demand app development partner that not always agree with what you want, but also suggests what is right for you.

That’s all about creating an on-demand taxi app like Uber

Now you know everything you need to know about Uber-like app development. So, here are your next steps-

After the detailed discussion with our on-demand app development experts, you will have a complete understanding of how your app will furnish.