How to Create Your Custom Carpooling App & How Much Does it Cost?

Introduction

In this busy era of transportation, many companies aim to provide car services that help in transportation for a single person or a group of people who can share a car and travel from one destination to another. 

Employees all over the globe search for a fast and efficient way of reaching their workplaces. Therefore, multiple taxi booking app development companies exist, and MultiQOS is one of them. Thus, the trend of opting for carpooling applications and how to make a rideshare app has helped everyone reach their workplace or any destination cost-effectively. 

What is Car Pooling App?

Ridesharing and Carpooling are one of the most trending businesses and have a social pattern. As a layman’s definition, when a person or a group of people share a ride, it is called carpooling, and the software or application that provides these taxi app solutions which are known as carpooling app. 

With the increase in the unreliability of public transport, these carpool apps have gained a lot of popularity. This article contains every detail you need to know if you plan to start your own carpooling business. 

How Do These Carpooling Apps Work?

A carpool is one of the most significant activities in the transportation business. It is an activity between at least two people sharing an unattended vehicle to make their regular daily trip. These carpooling apps provide a driver who drives their assigned cars on each trip. You will need to select your pickup and drop location for the driver coming with the car. 

Some decent guidelines help these applications determine the fare of the trip. At the end of each trip, they calculate the fare depending on the time of the trip and the distance covered. When you share the carpool with someone else, the fare decreases a lot since the exact fare which had to be paid by the individual gets divided between the people who are sharing. 

Types of Carpooling App Business Models

• Free Floating within an Operational Area 

Free Floating operational service generally provides services within a particular area without fixed stations. It aims to make transportation easier all over the city without any central base.

• Free Floating with Pool Stations  

In this car service, the cars are picked up from a pool station and moved around the city in a particular zone. After the day of operation, they are returned to the stations.

• Round-Trip Home Zone Based  

A round trip car sharing basically provides services when a vehicle starts from a particular location, completes the trip, and returns to the exact location within a particular area.

• Round-Trip Pool Station Based 

In this type of car sharing, the cars are picked from a pool station, and then they start and end their trip at a particular location only after completing the entire round trip with the passenger.

• Peer to Peer and Community Schemes 

In Peer to Peer car sharing, an individual rents out their private car to another individual. It is generally a rental car that allows any individual to book a rental car to go around Independently.

How to Build a Carpooling Application?

If you want to know how to build a ride-sharing app, be prepared because it requires a lot of patience and investment. Here we have discussed how to develop a carpooling app. You need to keep all the features of a carpooling application in mind and provide something unique to stand out. 

You will have to set up the plans for your business on the prototype. Always try to be specific with the services. 

• First, assemble all the requirements of your application. It includes the software being used to develop the application and also all the people who are going to work on the project. 
• Then you will have to plan the project and decide on the UI or UX design process. Decide on who will be working in which field. 
• Once you have finalized everything, you need to start developing the application. Take the help of all the required software that suits your purpose. 
• After finishing the development process, the application must be sent through proper quality mobile app testing. This testing is necessary as it reveals bugs the user will not like. 
• And lastly, it has to be launched. It can be launched on Google Play Store and App Store as long as it fulfils the platform’s requirements, terms, and conditions. 

Also Read: Ultimate Guide for Last-Mile Delivery Management for 2024

Must-Have Features for a Carpooling App

Here are the essential features that taxi app developers must add to build a Carpooling application. 

• Sign-Up

It is a must-have feature for every carpooling application. This feature allows you as a customer to register yourself using your contact number and email id. 

• Location

This feature helps the customer track the driver’s movement so they can know how far their driver is and how long he will need to reach the pickup location. 

• Fare Estimation

This feature will help the passenger to get a brief idea of the fare they will have to pay once they reach the destination. 

• Payment Gateway

In this era of digitalization, most people do not prefer carrying cash for cabs. In this scenario, the payment gateway feature plays a significant role where users can use their credit card, debit card, or any UPI id to pay the fare. 

• Ride Searching

With the help of this particular feature, users can easily search for the availability of rides near them by adding the pickup and drop location. 

• ETA

It is the abbreviation for Estimated Time of Arrival. This feature will help the passenger to know an estimated time for the arrival of their booked car. 

• Reviews and Ratings

This feature is essential as the users can share their ride experience and give a rating or review so that it may be helpful for other passengers to know how their ride will be. 

• In-app Chatting 

The passengers must communicate with the driver to help them with the location by calling or messaging them. 

Features for the Driver’s Panel

• Registration

Through this feature, the people who want to work as drivers must register, verify their identity, and signup with their email id or contact number. 

• Navigation

Sometimes the driver will have to rely on the navigation system as they may need help knowing where to go. Thus this navigation feature will help them to go to their destination. 

• Booking

Since the drivers cannot always accept every ride or booking, it is in their hands whether they will accept it. This feature allows the drivers to cancel a booking if they are uncomfortable with it. 

• Fare Estimation

Just like the fare estimation feature for the users, the driver also needs to estimate the fare so that they can accept or reject the trip according to that. 

• Reports

This feature helps the driver to check the regular earnings that they make. Although this increases the cost of developing Carpooling App, it provides a higher application functionality. 

The Admin also needs some features to monitor the passengers and drivers. 

• Dashboard

This dashboard feature helps the Admin manage and monitor the vehicles and their critical stats so they can send messages to the drivers or the users. 

• Passenger Management

With the help of this particular feature, the admins can check all the details about the rides taken, such as the ratings and reviews. 

• Driver Management

Sometimes the admins need to manage the drivers concerning some aspects, such as adding or removing drivers, blocking or unblocking them, and managing their payments. 

Technology Stack for Building a Carpooling App

These are the approximate technology stack required for building a carpooling app. 

• Cloud environment: AWS
• Online Payments: GooglePay, PayTM, & PhonePe.
• Elastic email, email notifications
• Database: MongoDB, Hbase, Cassandra, Postgres, MailChimp Integration
• Node.js for back-end
• Google Places
• Google Directions
• Card.io
• APNS
• Google Maps
• Socket io for real-time notification
• Firebase
• Kotlin for Android App
• Swift for iOS app
• Facebook SDK for Facebook login

Also Read: How Much Does It Cost to Develop a Logistics App in 2024?

How Much Does It Cost to Develop a Carpooling App?

With all the general details above, anyone can start their own carpooling business. For that, you will have to develop the application with the help of the developers. Factors affecting the cost of building a carpooling app are:

• Application Platform Selection

You will have to select a platform for launching the application. This factor affects the cost to develop carpooling app significantly. You need to check your target audience to decide the platform of launching, whether Android or iOS. The cost will significantly increase if the app is developed for iOS and Android. 

• Team Structure

Developing such an app is not possible for a particular person. You will need experts and professionals for this purpose. The experts required include business analysts, UI designers, carpooling application developers, project managers, and quality analysts. 

• Designing Tool for the Application

While preparing to develop a carpooling application, it is necessary to know all the tools that can be used. These tools make a tremendous difference in the cost of developing the carpooling app. 

• Testing Tools for the Application 

It is the last factor that decides the cost of the application development. If the testing tool is modern, it may slightly increase the cost to build carpooling app. 

Considering all the above factors, the average taxi booking app development cost varies between $15000 to $25000. The exact ridesharing app development cost may vary depending on the design and integration, which is different for every application.

MultiQos Expertise in Ridesharing App Development Solutions

Suppose you have made up your mind to develop a carpooling application. In that case, MultiQ OS can be your one-stop ride sharing app solution, as this mobile app development company stands out as one of India’s best application development company. We have teams of highly qualified mobile app developers in india and Carpooling App Developers who have worked on these projects many times. 

It is not only a taxi booking app development company but can also develop any required application. We also have an excellent record when it comes to application development and has numerous satisfied customers. When you come to us, we aim to provide you with the best experiences you may demand. 

Final Thought

The demand for carpooling services has increased significantly in the past few years. Thus it has also increased the requirement for carpooling applications. Developing the carpooling application and coming into the business may ne profitable for most people.