New York Launches Arro App For The Taxis In Order To Compete With Uber by Anand Rajendran
The People of New York need not wait in the street corner to search for the taxis. There wait is ended. They can now book the taxi through the app; by just tapping the app you can save you waiting time for the taxi. NYC taxis have tried this concept in order to compete with the Uber. They got frustrated with the success of Uber and decided to develop an app, to help the taxi users from their long wait and also to compete with Uber.
Arro App
The app is named as Arro; it was developed by the experts in the taxi industry. This app has some similar features as Uber’s app and functions more or less same as the Uber’s app. By just tapping on the “order a taxi” option, it will show you the nearest possible locations from where the taxi should start. When you reach at the destination, the fare will be automatically deducted from your account, which you have registered while signing up for the app.
The developers say that the app is more reliable and faster that the Uber’s app. And there is no surge pricing in it. Surge pricing is nothing but, costing higher fares at the time of high demand that is at the time of peak hours, natural disasters, etc. this app is tested in 7000 taxis and it will be available for the 20,000 taxis throughout the New York.
New York is the latest city to make the taxi booking more relevant to the users by booking the taxis by just tapping up the app on the smart phone. Some cities were angrily embracing about the app. But some cities like Washington D.C, San Francisco and Chicago are also taking steps to have their own E-hailing apps for their taxis. And they feel that having the E-hailing app for the cabs is mandatory. Washington D.C began its testing for the app. And Chicago is having confusion in what service to be used.
A report says that, half of the people who use the taxi-hailing services use only Uber in US. And in New York the taxi ridership has decreased by 8% during 2012 and 2014. The apps which were used before has taken little efforts to close this gap. The D.C app Curb which was previously known as Taxi Magic, launched in 2009, before the uber, it worked with 90 taxi companies in around 60 cities. But it had failed due to radar. The Hailo app which lasted in London for a year, it got pulled out because of the price war between the Lyft and Uber.
An urban planning professor at the Columbia University, Mr. David King, felt that this taxi industry is not a settled market. He had been studying the taxi industry for the past six years, and he was optimistic about the future of the industry. Uber had the good start in the industry, but it will not be the leading taxi company in ten years, because it is losing its money, they are financially supporting many of their trips and they are having battles with every government.
The company is making a risky business. The company is testing a program, and that program is aimed at the collecting the 30% commissions from the drivers, part time drivers will be greatly affected by this program. Drivers are moving to different companies, the customers are facing difficulty in this situation.
In other parts, except the US, the other taxi companies and the apps are greatly welcomed by the users as they charge less fare from the customers. Hailo is largely welcomed in Asia as well as Europe, because the regulators have noticed that, how well the taxi industry supports the inhabitants of that particular place.
Tom Barr, the chief financial officer told the financial times in 2014, that the taxis have the better markets in Asia and Europe, and it has the friendly environment.
Kakao is the taxi hailing app in Korea; it is just two months old. It has the great response from the people of Korea. And it has become the competition for Uber in Korea. Then the service was suspended, because it did not fulfill the local regulations. The parent company of Kakao is Daum Kakao it is still considered to take the services to US.
David King says that, there will be more taxi hailing services in the US. And people will choose the best service, which suites them in all the factors. People will choose the service based upon the price and convenience. We are at the point, where there is no price competition between the tech based taxi companies.
This is exactly a very small process; it is an evolutionary process in the taxi business than the evolutionary process in technology. The local government cannot stand out if there is any problem, they should involve and try to resolve the problem. The city and the state should not take the problem as a business.
Juno
People of New York have another possibility to book a taxi through the smart phone. The app is named ad Juno. This was developed to take the customers and the drivers out of the Uber. This app was founded by Talmon Marco, he is an entrepreneur, and he had fame when the Viber, the messaging app which he founded was sold to Rakuten for $900 million.
The Juno app is friendlier to the customers and the drivers than the Uber. It pays more for the drivers, with regardless of the fame it receives from advertising.
The app is launched for the beta test, signing the app simple just like Uber. You have to enter your phone number, credit card and your photo. Then you have to select the type of the car, bliss, lux and an SUV, bliss are the simple car, lux is the most expensive car and an SUV is more costly than the lux. Then you have to enter your starting and destination places. Then you can enjoy you can enjoy your ride.
Gett
Gett is an Israel mobile app for booking the taxi. It is an app for booking the black cars in Israel. It is similar to Uber in most of the features. But it does not have the surge pricing that is one of the attractive features of the app. When you book a taxi through the app, it will show your location in maps and notifies you the time at which the vehicle can reach your place.
Via
Via is a non Uber taxi service. It was aimed to pick up people who go to work in other places, rather than going out.
It restricts the door to door service. Rather it will drop you at the street corner. But the main advantage is that, it costs only $5 irrespective of the time and distance. And it will not keep the customers waiting; the cars will take the ride all the time. It expands its services at the night time and limits at the Saturdays. The via cars were air conditioned, but how can they offer rides for $5, in spite of having all the facilities. But these cars are available only in Manhattan region.
The features of Arro are better than the others. But, Arro has made a partnership with the Creative Mobile Technologies that limits the services of Arro; it allows only a limited portion. Arro is working further to have a partnership with the VeriFone systems that will increase the services of Arro. After the success of Arro in New York, it plans to launch in the other cities also, the cities include San Francisco, Washington D.C and Boston.
Author Bio:
Anand Rajendran is the Co-founder & CEO of Casperon. He is a content marketing and social media marketing Specialist. He covers many things like ecommerce, marketing, design, development, strategy, plus emerging trends, including omnichannel and cloud replatforming. GetmeTaxi is a Software development Company Owned by Casperon Technologies which has launched a Taxi Dispatch Software called Cabily.
