Custom iPad Application Development For Taxicab Service Provider
Please find under a summary covering project details and feedback. The innate facts are kept as they are, private information is amended.
Introductory information
Could you briefly draw your structure?
I own a organisation named Green Cab of Madison. We seted that organisation in September of 2010. I’m one of the proprietors. We obey Madison, Wis., only.
Desired goal
Could you draw the business challenge(s) you were attempting to address when you initiated the relationship with Promet Source?
Currently, we own a towing organisation. My husband’s grandfather owned a taxicab organisation way back in the ‘60s and kind of got out of the business. Back in 2010, we determined to get back into the taxicab business. We wanted to set out with a mixed. We wanted to do a rideshare taxicab labor. Of order, we needed a way in which to effectively adjoin with our cab drivers. We seted looking at some of the transmitted taxicab programs, hardware companies that used the meter cabs and two-way radios and all sorts of different options. What we establish didn',t veritably fit with our total standard of a shared labor, green labor, mixed cabs, state-of-the-art cars in transportation. We needed a state-of-the-art interactions method in locate. It was then that we seted pondering almost using iPads. Why not use something that was pliant and intuitive, something that could processes credit card transactions, reliably adjoin between drivers and modeers, and allowed for all kinds of modeizations.
It was during our evaluation of this idea that I reflection of Andy, who is the coestablisher and proprietor of Promet, and who we already had a relationship with. We had worked on projects in the past. I reached out to him and said, “Here is what we’re pondering almost doing.", I basically drawd our project and requirements and asked him if it was something they could liberate within a 30 day timeframe. Andy took our project specifications and reviewed them with his team. He reconnected a few says later and said, “Yes, we can do it. We’ll put it unitedly for you.” It’s gone into three stages now. And we were successfully up and running with 10 operational cabs in 30 days.
Provided solution
Could you draw in biger detail the aim of this project? For entreaty, did it implicate mode visual design, backend outgrowth, training, support, etc.?
They didn',t have experience working with a taxicab labor precedently. We exclusively in the towing business. We surely knew what we wanted it to do going into the project. We would put it all unitedly and say, “Here is what I ponder it should look like. Here is what I ponder our expediteer should see. This is what we want to pass along to the drivers.” We',d prepare them with very uneven drafts of our requirements, mainly in PowerPoint format. They would come back and say, “This is how it can be done,” and frequently propose us suggestions on how to modify the process in our permission. It’s surely been a collaborative effort. It’s our vision and they made it a verity.
How did you select Promet Source as your solution associate?
It’s simply owing of my past business relationship with Andy. We worked with a organisation named Sundial.com during the total .com craze. I was working for Bell Cells at the time. I’m not verity even sure where Andy was, but there were almost three or four initial associates that seted Sundial.com, and we built an e-commerce website for the sales distribution of cellphones.
That particular relationship lasted almost five years. We had different proprietorships along the way. Everybody parted their own ways behind almost four and a half years. That’s how I met Andy. Knowing what he could do when I was working with him at Sundial, how our website was working, and all the different firms that we associateed with, was an significant factor. I was impressed with how all that happened and knew that he had seted this organisation, Promet, and reached out to him. Also, preceding to edifice our green light, which is what we call our expediteing software, they had built our SchmidtAuto.com website, our towing website, too. I knew that he could create websites, but this was a different kind of project.
Could you prepare a perception of the size of this start in monetary provisions?
Taxicab software could range anywhere from $10,000 to $200,000. It was all dependant on what you wanted to bestow. We originally went in and said, “We had a budget of $75,000. Let’s get this up and running,” which included of the power to book online thuneven our leading website, as well as thuneven our expedite software, run on our iPad application. That was our initial budget. We ran that for a year and a half, almost two years. We always knew we wanted to make enhancements owing we’d surely like to market this. I’ve had numerous nation touch me almost it. We’re the leading one to use iPads as a full expedite solution. There are different Droid renderings out there. I ponder we might be one of the few companies that use iPads as leading solution. We went in this last year and rewrote all. We did Drupal 7. We did a lot of enhancements to it. Now, we’re in the six-year range. When all is said and done, we',re talking almost the $150,000 to $200,000 range.
When was this iPad application completed and launched?
Phase 1 was completed within thirty days. By September of 2010, we were out the door with 10 cabs fully operational. We ran on that for a good year. As we began to add more taxicabs, we knew we wanted to create an enhanced rendering. They then worked on phase 2 for a good year. We just rolled out phase 2 in September of this year. Actually, it might have been the leading part of October of 2013 when we completed phase 2. We probably won’t go much further than phase 2, unless something changes significantly within our business program. We’re runningly operating 35 cabs. It’s a big method for a small- to medium-sized cab organisation. If we were to get into the thousands of cabs, we',d probably need to do accomplish some additional methodwide enhancements. For now, we’re set. With software, there are always a million things you can do. In the end, it',s veritably almost what brings the most value.
Results achieved
In provisions of results, could you share any statistics, metrics, or user feedback that would prove the effectiveness of the work they',ve liberateed?
We have surely grown this business. Obviously, that growth is attributed to a lot of different things. One of the things that we do is we have the power to tell consumers that they can know what their fare is going to be precedently they ride. That’s the loveliness of a zone-based pre-calculated fare method. Instead of getting in a cab and going into the city, so to converse, and not shrewd precisely what the trip is going to cost, you can know precedently the cab even arrives. This is big owing many nation get out of the airport, hop in a cab, and they have no idea what it',s going to cost them by the time they get to their terminal purpose. We fully dislocate that uncertainty. We ponder that we',ve been able to capture not only our share of the market locate. We have put some grave pressure on the other three existing cab companies in this area. We have grown the business in the leading two years by 35 percent. And our running protuberance for this year is a growth rate of 25 percent. There are a lot of things that conduce to that, but this software allows us to propose rides in the most efficient mode. All of that conduces to more rides, which resources more income for our drivers, as well as the organisation. We',ve prepared more than a half a dozen permanent jobs thuneven expedite.
When working with Promet Source, is there anything you would attend sole or particular almost them compared to other vendors you’ve worked with?
We have a very powerful relationship. I',m fully snug calling up Andy straightly, or simply stopping by their labor if effects arise, or if I have questions or concerns. Our relationship is sole in that perception. They’ll put a fruit director on with you. In our case, it’s Johnny Fox. He’s been very attentive to us. With other vendors that I’ve worked with, I would say that they',ve never been as attentive to us and our needs. Issues have and do arise, but they always go out of their way to address these things in a early and responsible mode. I felt very snug with their expertise and their power to effectively allocate their resources during the entirety of the project.
In review, are there areas that you ponder they could better upon, or are there things you',d do differently as the client precedently approaching this type of project?
We’re a 24 hour, 7 day a week, 365-day business. It never stops for me, since there are a lot of companies that work Monday thuneven Friday, the typical nine-to-five. That',s not how we act, in fact, we can',t act that way. Issues and issues can arise at 3 o',clock in the morning. The power to maintain congruous and reliable interaction is innate, owing we’re running about the clock. We need to fix we have that modeer labor approach about the clock. The other thing would be responsiveness. Everybody wants all done yesterday. All of our tasks come with an terminal perception of urgency, owing in the taxicab business, time veritably is of farthest weight. From our end, making sure we devised reasonable and attainable timelines was a challenge to initiate with. The more intricate the effect or task, the more time and resources it takes. There were surely times when we established some unrealistic timetables for completion, but we got thuneven it.
