How to Start a Business like Uber?

Taxi administration was previously an amenity that wasn’t a choice for everyone. Uber made this amenity a need by dropping the fares and making the ride accessible to anyone who has a smartphone.

This change wasn’t only for the riders but also for the drivers who found a new and better way to run their online taxi venture. Uber opened a new way of doing the taxi business, which revolutionized the industry and created equal opportunities for people of every financial and geographical background.

If taxi startup is not your thing, then you can follow the same strategy for various other on-demand service app startups like:

On-Demand Healthcare Service
Beauty Services & On-Demand Salons
On-Demand Mechanic
On-Demand Gas Delivery Service
On-Demand Transportation
On-Demand Food Delivery Service

But these app startup ideas are for another day. Our today’s blog is about how to start a business like uber, so that’s what we’ll be talking about.

Uber began its services with an iOS application. At first, with Uber, you could only book a simple taxi ride. With time, Uber conveyed a new line of cab services like UberBLACK, UberX, and UberPOOL.

Uber Black allows the user to choose the ride as per their choice from a list of top luxury rides. UberX offered the most basic and price friendly service, which also became the default service for the majority of their customers. Then came UberPOOL, with this service you can share the ride with other riders going towards the same destination.

Having explored all the ways to serve its customers on the road, Uber is now launching UberCopter. An Uber service for helicopter rides.

How to Make Your Own Uber-like Business Model?

The perfect approach to plan an Uber like app development:

Find and observe the industry still working with a primitive approach.
Look for the pain-points (the troubles) that the customers are facing from their current taxi service.
Meet their demand with a modern and mobile solution (a complete taxi app solution).
Keep upgrading your taxi app and services (just as Uber has been doing).

Must Have App Features in Your Taxi App

There are several taxi services around the world, but what makes Uber different from other taxi-services?

The thoughtful features of Uber!

Uber is not a single app, but rather made up of two mobile applications:

The Customer App
The Driver App

Each of these individual apps provides their own set of features for its unique stakeholder. Let us have a look at the taxi app features that will build up the million-dollar taxi-hailing company you aim to create.

Customer App Features:

Track a Ride

The rider feeds the pickup and drops location in the user app, the driver accepts the ride request from the driver app. From this point on, the rider can track the vehicle in real-time to get an estimation of its arrival. This tracking will continue until the cab reaches its destination.

Fare Estimation

When the passengers feed the pickup and drop location in the app, they will receive an estimate fare charge based on the calculation made by the GPS route to be taken.

Multiple Modes of Payment

With the multi-payment option, the user can pay for the ride from any of the following means: Debit/Credit card, Net banking, In-App Wallet, and even cash. This way, the rider, and the driver don’t waste time if a payment channel doesn’t work.

Book Later Ride later

With the Book Later Ride feature, the user can book a ride in advance to avoid the rush hour booking trouble. You can also book the ride in advance of a week’s notice for destinations like Airport, and harbours.

Other useful features are:

Favourite Destinations

Split Charges

Panic Button

Driver App Features:

Route optimization:

With route optimization, the driver get to ride through the most efficient route based on Weather updates, traffic updates, and road conditions.

Quest earnings:

This is a gamification feature to improve the productivity of the drivers. The drivers have to complete a pre-defined number of rides in the quest to win and earn an additional amount.

Short Cancellation Window:

When the driver arrives at the pick-up location, the first 2 minutes of waiting are not-charged from the rider. If the passengers take more time after the first 2 minutes, then charges incur to the fare. Still, if the passenger is nowhere to be found, the driver can cancel the ride and get the cost for extra waiting.

Heat Maps

Heat maps show the drivers in the app, the locations where the most number of requests are made at any given time. This way if you are in those heat map areas, you can get the most number of ride requests.

Other useful app features:

Driver Delivery Reports

Driver Destinations

Forward Dispatch

Conclusion

There is also an additional admin dashboard program that helps you, the business owner, to overlook the entire business from one dashboard. To create such an elaborate taxi app solution, you will need a large and skillful team of app developers that have sufficient experience in Uber-like app development.