How to Create a Ride-Sharing Mobile App in 2024?

Updated 27 Dec 2023
Published 03 Jan 2023
Nancy Bhargava 4447 Views
Ride-Sharing Application

The proliferation of ride share apps has been an advantage for those trying to save costs and carbon emissions without sacrificing convenience.

Many companies around the world offered the necessary infrastructure by providing online taxi booking services through an application. Ride share apps reduce travel costs and save time. As a result, 2024 is a great year to create a ride-sharing application like careem and uber and capitalize on the market.

What is Ride Sharing?

Ridesharing ( also called carpooling ) is a fast and easy way for people to find a one-way ride to their destination. The technology that facilitates transactions between providers of goods and services and their respective clients is the backbone of the “sharing economy.”

The traditional model, in which private companies own the infrastructure, has given way to the sharing economy model, which just permits interactions between people.

To clarify, the drivers are independent car owners who have adopted the ridesharing business model. The majority of drivers are self-employed. Therefore, ridesharing companies do not withhold taxes from drivers’ salaries and offer flexible hours.

Ride-Sharing Market Stats       

There is a pressing need for taxi booking app development in the modern economy. People are changing how they arrange rides and how they like to travel.

On the contrary hand, the market is without a doubt thriving. To appreciate why the ride-sharing industry is so promising, it’s necessary to examine the current market.

Global Ridesharing Market
Image Credit: researchandmarkets.com
  • Over the next few years, the worldwide ridesharing market is expected to expand at a CAGR of 16.6%.
  • According to research, By 2026, the ridesharing industry’s revenue is projected to reach $185.1 billion, creating a long-term growth opportunity for entrepreneurs.
  • Reports indicate that commuters in China, the United States, and Europe favor ridesharing over public transportation.
  • In the United States alone, the ridesharing market is estimated to be worth $61 million.

Top Ride Sharing Apps Across Globe

1- Uber

Uber was launched in 2009 as UberCab by Garrett Camp and Travis Kalanick. For its first few years on the market, UberCab catered to those who could afford to ride in style. You can develop uber like rideshare app for your taxi business

Uber Download

Uber’s first official application debuted in San Francisco in 2011. It is now the standard for both iOS and Android. Uber operates in over 70 countries and has facilitated over 7 billion driver journeys.

Available on: Android & IOS

2- Lyft

In 2012, a year after Uber’s 2012 inception, another significant San Francisco-based ride-sharing startup Lyft, was launched.

Lyft Download

In the United States, this ridesharing service is available in 644 cities, whereas in Canada, it is available in 12 cities. Lyft is the number two player in the market, behind only Uber, with a 31% share.

Available on: Android & IOS

3- DiDi

Similar to Uber, the Chinese ridesharing company DiDi was established in Beijing in 2012. With a total of $21.2 billion, DiDi successfully raised capital.

DiDi App Download

When Uber entered the Chinese market in 2016, DiDi forked over $35 billion to acquire Uber China. Uber, in turn, has purchased a 15.4% stake in DiDi.

Available on: Android & IOS

4- Grab

Grab App Download

Grab, a ride-hailing service headquartered in Singapore is an important player in the Southeastern Asian market. This service provider has been around since 2012 and has expanded to over 55 cities in Southeast Asia. Grab employs both individual car owners and traditional taxi drivers. 

Available on: Android & IOS

5- Curb

As a ride-sharing service, Curb is relatively new both internationally and domestically. Located in New York’s Long Island City, this ridesharing service first opened its doors in 2007.

Curb App Download

Now, it’s among the best 50 “Travel & Tourism” apps available on both iOS and Android. In its 13 years, Curb has amassed over $40.7 million in funding.

Available on: Android & IOS

How to Start an On-Demand Car Pooling Business?

Identify your Intended Audience-

Finding your ideal customer is the first step in launching a successful ridesharing business. The key to launching a successful rideshare company is understanding your target market.

Get a feel for the demographics of the people who are using the ridesharing service. Once you identify the demographic, you may tailor your offerings to meet their needs.

Get your Business Plan Ready-

Start your firm off on the right foot with a solid plan of action. It’s crucial to have a well-thought-out business plan in place that accounts for all of the necessary resources. If you want your business to succeed, you need a plan that is both practical and ambitious.

Create a Marketing Plan-

The next thing to do when launching a ridesharing business is to develop an excellent advertising plan. To reach your target demographic, you need a solid marketing plan.

Advertising and marketing services allow you to connect with consumers no matter where they may be located, online or off.

Even better, it will clearly differentiate your company from the competition. Businesses that don’t advertise themselves usually don’t do as well as they’d want. In light of this, after you have established your rideshare business, you must ensure its prominence.

Comprehend the Legal Requirements-

Know what paperwork and authorizations are required to launch a ridesharing company. Various rules and laws are established by the federal government for each municipality and state.

Therefore, to protect yourself from legal trouble, make sure you are familiar with all of the prerequisites. Whether it’s paperwork, permissions, licenses, or potential roadblocks, it’s important to have a complete picture before getting started.

Develop a Rideshare App-

You may take your ridesharing business to the next level by creating a smartphone app. In order to provide services and sell products, a business needs a smartphone app.

Since we live in a digital age where everyone uses their phones for everything, it only makes sense that people would expect this. The app provides a one-stop shop for customers to easily and quickly book rides through ride-sharing app and reach their destinations.

How to Start a Ride-Sharing Business

Monetization Models For Ride Share App

One aspect that all of the ride-hailing platforms on the market have in common is the adoption of cutting-edge strategies to keep costs down.

On each trip, they looked for ways to save money and time. Companies did this by preparing their drivers to act as tour guides and by enabling location-based filters.

Businesses claimed to monitor the drivers’ progress to make sure they were using their products safely and effectively while behind the wheel.

The basic workflow consists of the passenger requesting a taxi and the nearby drivers receiving an alert. A driver responds positively to the request and shows up at the agreed-upon location. The rider can pay via digital or in-app payment methods and provide feedback based on their experience with the ride.

Many of you are probably wondering if ride-sharing applications are profitable given this business strategy. Okay, that makes sense. They do.

Distance traveled, route taken, the number of passengers, driver’s requests, local toll costs, and the platform’s base charge are the primary variables that determine the total cost of a trip.

Everything but the expected time is displayed and decided upon before users even start the ride, making it easy to plan ahead.

Create a Ride Sharing Mobile App

How to Make Money Using Ride-sharing App?

If you want your on-demand transportation apps to expand and become profitable, you must select a suitable monetization strategy. The future expenses of the ridesharing company can be reduced by settling on a business strategy.

The three possible commercial strategies are listed below:

Make Money using Ride-sharing Apps

1. Commission Model

Common to many ridesharing apps is a commission-based feature. Each financial transaction incurs a service fee in this segment. Lyft, for instance, takes 20% of each fare from the drivers.

2. Partnering Model

More revenue potential and a wider selection of vehicles for clients can be realized through increased collaboration with vehicle providers. To facilitate the spread of electric vehicles throughout Southeast Asia, Grab joined together with Hyundai Motor Group.

3. Advertising Model

Advertising refers to the practice of displaying advertisements for third-party apps within your app to generate modest revenue.

Most ridesharing applications avoid this strategy for fear of alienating their clientele. Having too many ads appear on screen at once can drive away users.

How to Create a Best Ride Share App?

Create a Ride-Sharing App

1. Perform Market Research

Researching the market is essential before releasing a new product. For two obvious reasons

  • Convenience
  • Low cost

The ride-sharing app business is expanding quickly and showing tremendous potential.

Despite the fact that it has been shown that the industry has enormous potential, it is essential to also examine the competition. You’ll be able to fill in the gaps in the current applications and get a sense of what taxi app features will set your product apart from the competition.

When you have a firm grasp of the value propositions and revenue models of the competition, you can move forward with assurance.

2. Perform a Value Proposition Analysis

It can be difficult to get into the application industry if your product doesn’t stand out from the competition. To this end, it is important to engage in activities such as ideation, analysis, and extensive market research in order to identify a marketable niche or distinguishing trait.

It’s important to pick the functionalities that work for your idea and the audience you intend to reach. 

3. Choose the Development Approach

The development of a ridesharing app can be approached in one of three ways: natively, cross-platform, or as a hybrid:

1. Native App Development

To make your ridesharing software compatible with several platforms, you’ll need to write separate versions of the code for each system. Accordingly, if you want to build a rideshare app that runs natively on both Android and iOS, you’ll need to hire two developers.

Consequently, native app development is more expensive, but the benefits of a superior user experience and brisk performance are well worth the additional expense. 

2. Cross-Platform App Development

Cross-platform app development is the practice of developing apps for multiple platforms (Android, iOS, and web) from a single source codebase.

It takes less time and money to get this strategy ready for the market. In addition, several cross-platform app development frameworks offer functionality on par with native apps.

3. Hybrid App Development

Unlike native apps, hybrids can be used on multiple platforms. An HTML5 app, CSS3 app, or JavaScript app are all examples of hybrid apps. When compared to native apps, these do not provide a better user experience or perform better than cross-platform apps, but they do perform comparably.

4. Develop a Minimum Viable Product

When designing a rideshare app, you can choose either a minimum viable product (MVP) or a full product development approach. If you are short on funds, creating a minimum viable product is a sensible option.

The primary goal of developing a minimum viable product (MVP) is to create an app with only the functionality essential for defining the app’s value proposition and enticing potential supporters and early customers. This method can help you test your idea with real people and get their thoughts on how to make it better.

5. Product Launch and Evaluation

If you’ve built a minimum viable product (MVP) for a rideshare app but haven’t yet had it tested by a certified quality assurance professional, you should.

When you’re satisfied that your application is bug-free, you can submit it to app stores for distribution. It may take several days for an application to be approved by the app stores and released to the public.

6. Feedback on your Minimum Viable Product

To figure out what modifications should be made to your ridesharing application in order to get traction, collect user feedback after releasing the product. With multiple revisions, you’ll be well on your way to developing a completely functional product.

Must-have Features of Ride-Sharing App

Features of Ride-Sharing App

Customers App

Customers should be at the forefront when we choose what kinds of features to implement. If you are interested in creating a new ride-sharing application, you have likely already used one.

Exactly what features did you find most helpful when using Uber? Lyft? What do you wish they had done differently? These are the sorts of things to think about when designing the interface and features. Listed below are some of the functionalities of the ride-sharing app’s customer module:

Registration

The signup process in your app should be prioritized as a top priority. Developing a protected, encrypted space where users may save login information and link their accounts with social media for streamlined access and sharing.

Searching for a Driver

The point of ride-sharing apps is to link users not just with drivers but also with other riders going in the same direction. Any potential customers of yours should be allowed to pick their own route, mode of transportation, and whether or not to take any other passengers.

Getting Updates in Real-Time

It is crucial that the user is informed of all live occurrences, such as notifications from the driver or other riders that may delay the vehicle’s arrival.

Scheduling Transportation in Advance

The option to reserve a ride at a certain time and location is a major benefit of rideshare apps over hailing a taxi. This is crucial for planning trips to and from airports, concerts, dinner parties, and other events.

Payment

The payment system for a smartphone application must be extremely versatile. Can your customers pay with a credit card promptly before you pick them up?
Can they pay through services like PayPal, Stripe, and others? Can the fare be divided up beforehand according to the number of people taking the ride and the distance traveled?

Ability to Communicate

Regardless of your best efforts, unexpected problems or discrepancies will always appear, no matter how precise the arrangements are. Having a way to talk to the driver and the other passengers would be a huge help.

Guidelines for Refunds and Exchanges

It is important to have a well-defined cancellation policy and procedure in place, whether cancellations are last minute or scheduled in advance. Users frequently need to cancel because of last-minute emergencies, scheduled shifts, and other unavoidable reasons.

Drivers App

You can’t run your company without drivers. If you want to meet all of your customers’ needs, you’ll need a reliable and experienced driving crew. Drivers should have the freedom to work whenever they like, cancel rides at any time, and use their own vehicles for service.

To get the most out of them, you’ll need to ensure they’re trustworthy by doing background checks and incentivizing their participation. Here are the Essential features of the driver app include the following:

Account Login

The driver’s account must be secure against hacking attempts and have a smooth user experience in order to be reliable.

Ride Acceptance and Rejection

Drivers should be free to accept or decline as many requests as they like, whenever they like, given that using a rideshare application is done at their own leisure.

Trip Specifics

Before embarking on a vacation, travelers should have all the information they need, including a detailed itinerary, to calculate the time and money required, as well as any locations they might try to avoid.

Internally Integrated GPS

Using the map provided by the navigation system, the driver can choose the best route to go to pick up the customer and their fellow passengers. Client and co-user destinations can be reached using the same navigation map.

Contact Passenger

Having the customer’s contact information specified allows the driver to get in touch with them to find out their current location and the best way to go to their destination.

Receive Payment

After determining the approximate fare of the ride, the driver should be able to collect money from both the client and any additional passengers.

Compensation Eligibility

Lay out in detail how much money each driver can expect to make a per trip, as well as what costs will be reimbursed. Provide them with all relevant information, such as the payment schedule and method.

Develop Ride-Sharing Mobile App

Pros & Cons of Building a Ride-Sharing App from Scratch

Pros of Building a Ride-Sharing App

  • Developers have complete freedom over the app’s final version, including the ability to add or delete any and all features.
  • Building a reliable customer base requires persistence. Adding new features and improvements is simple after the product has been released and promoted.
  • Safeguarding drivers’ personal information and that of the app’s intended users is a top priority. You can encrypt sensitive data within the app if you have it developed to your specifications.
  • With the help of app developers, you can give your mobile app’s consumers unique and tailored experiences. This is no doubt one of the best carpooling app benefits while creating it from scratch.

Cons of Creating a Ride-Sharing App

  • The price tag for creating a new mobile app is far higher than that of adapting an existing one. Nonetheless, it opens up more options. 
  • Creating a fully functional mobile app from scratch is a more time-consuming process. Three to six months is the bare minimum. The time and effort you put into creating the mobile app might not pay off well.

Ridesharing App Development Cost

It takes around $150,000 to $250,000 in funding to create a ridesharing app in the USA. Such apps are intricate, with a plethora of back-end procedures, and are divided into three distinct modules: drivers, customers, and admins, as discussed above.

Several factors, including but not limited to feature count, platform type, outsourcing region, and availability of in-house expertise, can considerably affect the final price tag.

How to Market your Own Ride-sharing App?

Developing a plan for promoting a ride share app is essential before its release. To assist you, we have provided some suggestions for promoting the application:

Market your Own Ride-sharing App

Referrals

To encourage your target demographic to download and start using your ridesharing app, you may incentivize new users with referral bonuses. Uber, for instance, has a referral marketing scheme whereby customers who invite their friends to join the service can earn free rides for themselves.

Partnerships

To increase app downloads, consider forming strategic alliances with manufacturers of various automobiles. For instance, Lyft is working with Waymo to deploy autonomous vehicles. It lets you raise awareness of your brand in the marketplace and foster consumer loyalty.

A Loyalty Program

With some work, you can create a client loyalty program that provides numerous advantages to its participants. Customers who are truly dedicated to Uber and have taken 100 or more Uber rides, for instance, are eligible to join the “Uber VIP” program, making Uber one of the top ridesharing services.

Final Thoughts

There’s no denying that the ridesharing sector is fueling economic growth. Getting your foot in the door at the earliest is the best way to enjoy high profits down the road.

To that end, we do hope you’ve found this blog to be a helpful resource as you can work with Arka Softwares to develop a mobile app for your taxi business with minimal overhead. Arka Softwares is a Top mobile app development company and they have the expertise to develop on-demand apps for trending businesses.
Contact us today for on-demand ride-sharing service app development!

Questions Asked By Clients About Ride-Sharing App

Nancy Bhargava

Nancy works as an IT consulting professional with Arka Softwares. She has an in-depth knowledge of trending tech and consumer affairs. She loves to put her observations and insights of the industry to reveal interesting stories prompting the latest domain practice and trends.

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