How to Make a Taxi App: Process, Tips, Insights

You can’t imagine our life without IT-integrated technologies, as they significantly ease most of the daily tasks we perform. And in the digital world now, there are numerous applications that help us live happier and faster. A ridesharing business took the market in recent years. This is due to the COVID-19 outbreak that forced people to turn to digital solutions for ordering food, clothes and avoiding public places using taxi apps. 

The pandemic has also immensely affected this industry over the last few months. The revenue in the Ride-hailing niche is projected to reach US $258,384m in 2021, with an annual growth rate of 11.02%. Experts predict the overall market volume will be estimated at $392,580m by the end of 2025. Taxi booking platforms have almost replaced traditional ride-hailing services and will only grow their impact in upcoming years. Therefore, mobile apps are a must-have for any existing taxi business owners and startups who want to achieve success on the market. Reach us out to learn more and trust our team to build taxi booking app for your business growth!  

Main numbers you need to know on how to build taxi app

In today’s world, no one wants to call and order a taxi by phone. Only a few years ago, people didn’t realize how this sphere would change the world we live in. They usually struggled with waiting for hours, used outdated services, paid by cash as there were no other options. Now everything is much faster and easier. Just by tapping a few times on the mobile phones, the car will be right near the customer regardless of the location. What is more, users can choose the desired car level, see the driver’s rating, cancel if something unwanted happens, and all in all – everything within one app. Sounds amazing, right?

We are absolutely sure that the industry can only grow and shine in the future, as digital hailing apps got almost 1.3 million active users in the third quarter of 2019. This number almost doubled in two years, compared to a total of 668 million active users in 2017. According to Statista, the user penetration rate reached 19.7% in 2021 and is expected to hit 20.9% by the end of 2025.

The overall market growth promises a bright future for any company that wants to create taxi app. However, there are many things that have to be considered beforehand. Once you enter the taxi booking software industry, you’ll face sharp competition. Some of the market giants like Uber and Lyft have millions of active users and millions of dollars in revenue. In June 2020, Uber reached 70% of the market, while Lyft’s share was only 30%. This is why we designed this article based on our expertise in the industry. Here you will know what you need to give users to achieve success and overcome competitors. 

A step-by-step guide on how to build taxi booking app

When considering creating taxi booking app, you will need a strong and well-recognized brand with a value proposition. You will also need either a reliable tech team or a development company that knows everything about taxi app development. Let’s talk about steps required to develop a taxi app that will gain interest, become number one at app stores, and will be used by numerous users. 

• Step 1 – Learn The Market 

It’s vital to learn the market you are going to enter. Choose the location of your app: within your city or country and expand it later, or maybe it will be a global service. According to your plan, you also need to choose a payment system that works best for your country. This is because every country has its preferred payment systems, so research to find the most favorite ones. These factors influence the complexity of the final product and testing process. 

• Step 2 – Develop A Business Model

This is a vital stage that couldn’t be missed when you consider building taxi app. Here, you need to set up whether you will be a company that hires drivers and pays their salary or wants an Uber-like business. Choosing monetization ways affect your whole development process. You can choose to design an app that will take money from drivers they get from rides as the common taxi orders base. Therefore, passengers pay directly to the drivers, and you get a fee.

• Step 3 – Technical Specification & Requirements

The next stage of app development starts from creating a detailed technical specification with a whole list of requirements. This is a document that includes describing the accurate architecture and functionality of the prospected app in deep detail. As a rule, this is done by a team or outsourcing company. They use technical language to help stakeholders easily understand what you’re going to build. The specification allows you to understand the cost estimation and success of the building process.

• Step 4 – Choose the Best Development Model

The carefully chosen development model determines the cost and time you need for building an application. Here you need to understand what team members you need, which usually include developers, UX UI designers, and the QA team. It should also be emphasized that when you choose to create a team by yourself, it will be the most expensive option. This is because every profession has its own price for an hour. However, hiring a full team or a company will be cheaper for you and with more chances for success. 

• Step 5 – UX/UI Design

After choosing the development team, the next step of making taxi booking app is performed by the UX UI design team. This should be done prior to development. Designers will give you different kinds of prototypes that include wireframes and mock-ups to help you visualize what their final application would look like. Here you will need to discuss your needs and plans for app design. 

• Step 6 – Backend Development

The backend development integrates the functionalities of the mobile app with the database. During this stage, developers package your application with the server and middleware. Your team will also choose the technology stack that can be Java, Python, Go, and Swift. These are the most prominent languages used to create the backend of the application, and they depend on the platform your platform will work for. 

• Step 7 – Testing by QA team

Once everything is done, you can deliver your app to the QAt team for complex testing. Quality analysts check the functionality, efficiency, usability, and effectiveness of the final product. 

• Step 8 – Launch

After passing testing on all vital requirements and user experience, your taxi booking app can be ready to be used by customers. The application should be agreed upon by the store you choose, as some problems may occur at this stage too. This is why it is always easier to ask a third-party app to take care of distribution on platforms like App Store or Google Play. 

Features that need to be considered when you create a taxi app

Registration

The login and sign-up feature are a must-have for any taxi booking apps. Since it is the first page your ue=sers see when they enter the platform, make sure they will be satisfied with a smooth registration process and engaging design.  

Exact Pickup & Drop Location

This feature should also always be included in any taxi application. You can use the device GPS to find the current location of your clients and also help drivers understand the exact parameters of the client’s location. You can provide a drop location as always pinned or allow users to add it manually. 

Push Notifications

Push notifications can give many benefits for both clients and your business. They can help keep users updated on the latest deals and offers, trip details, and other vital information. By always being right by the user’s hand, you will get an improved retention rate and attract more customers. This feature also can make the app’s interface more engaging, easy to use, and fast.

Tracking

Since riders and users should track the trip in real-time, it is essential to develop efficient tracking features giving customers information on waiting time and an approximate time needed to reach their destination. 

Payment Integration

In recent years all taxi booking applications accepted only cash payments. However, now things are going better and with the integration of UPI payments and digital wallets are almost everywhere. You can implement simplistic payment APIs to offer users easy and fast payment via different modes. Payment should be flexible and full of options so it won’t impact the overall user experience of your app.

Insights on how to make a taxi app

Since we now know all steps of taxi app development, it is time to share with you our insights on the best frameworks for your future platform. Since development for different platforms (Android and iOS) takes a lot of resources, a cross-platform application would be a go-to option. Here frameworks are vital, so choosing the right one can be a challenging task. Let’s take a closer look at practice-proven ones that can be safely used for your platform:

1. Flutter

It is originally designed for Android development. But within a few months, it was transformed into a well-known hybrid framework supporting two main mobile platforms: Android and iOS. 

Flutter provides an outstanding user experience on both operating systems and makes it one of the most used frameworks for hybrid mobile app development. 

2. React Native

It is one of the oldest frameworks for smooth and bug-free mobile app development. Now it is probably the most popular one among numerous IT specialists. It has been built over the JSX, which is the extension to JS. It is a cost-effective solution, is free and open-source, supports live and hot reloading, so there is no need to recompile the code each time you want to see changes. 

3. Xamarin

Even though it is a bit on the downside, the framework is extremely powerful thanks to the fact it was built on C #. Being a hybrid framework, Xamarin provides cost-effectiveness as you won’t need to write additional code for the second platform. It allows great integration with numerous libraries, represents a perfect choice for writing offline applications, and gives an opportunity for developers to see how the app will look at the exact platform.

Among these three frameworks, the best one we advise you to use for taxi app development in React Native. It will allow you to find developers and make them work together easily. The number of libraries is awesome, making it much faster to build an app. Also, this framework is one of the oldest, making it an appealing choice due to many successful cases that are now leached without any problems.

Consider Interexy Your Trusted Partner

Interexy knows everything on how to develop taxi booking app due to our solid experience in this niche. We were a trusted development company for the global courier network of Rover+. The One Rover app is now able to send and deliver absolutely anything within one mobile platform. We have a strong and well-thought-out hiring process that helps us choose only high-skilled professionals who have already worked in the delivery industry. 

We also chose React Native as a front-end mobile implementation language since it is a popular & stable cross-platform solution for MVP development. The product team has plans to rewrite the source code into native iOS Swift & Android Kotlin environments once current marketing campaigns are finished successfully. Matching algorithms, geofencing, and drivers’ payments became the most complex tasks that we faced during the development of this product which required a high level of cooperation & understanding between front-end and backend teams.

Our team is ready to put your ideas into a reality with any requirements. Contact our manager to discuss further! 

Final thoughts

In conclusion, we hope you enjoyed our tips, stages, and insights on how to make a taxi app. Here we collected all vital information that can be useful to implement in your practice and wanted to give you a better understanding of this challenging but promising niche. If you are still not sure how to build taxi app that will succeed, our Interexy team is always here to help with any further questions.