Everything You Need to Know Before Building Taxi Booking Apps Like 13cabs
January 10, 2025
Living in overpopulated urban areas, many people prefer to use taxi services rather than using their vehicles as the city is struggling with endless traffic. Over the years, app-based ride-booking services have witnessed huge popularity as they help offer convenience, transparency, sharing, security, competitive prices, etc.
Big organizations like Uber and 13cabs are offering seamless taxi booking services, which is making users take no stress over traffic and fight for parking spots. With the rising demand for taxi booking applications in Australia, many entrepreneurs are stepping up towards building taxi booking apps. In this blog, we will explore the key factors that must be kept in mind for building a taxi-booking mobile app and the cost to create an app like 13cabs.
Understanding the Cost and Features of Building Taxi Apps like 13cabs in Australia
13cabs is one of the leading taxi apps in Australia that offers the highest fleet of cars and professional drivers for a safe and seamless travel experience. This ride-sharing app provides various services, such as taxi rides, parcel deliveries, and event transportation. Additionally, it has partnered with Flip, which helped to automate a big portion of its calls and boost its operational efficiency.
If you are planning to build an app like 13cabs, you must be aware of the cost and key features before hiring developers from the top app development company in Melbourne. The cost doesn’t depend on one thing, but it significantly depends on the app’s complexity, features, and development rate.
For instance, to build a feature like registration, the cost can be around $5k to $7k. Similarly, the booking system, along with search history, can cost $6k to $7k. Building a basic taxi app can cost between $20k to $50k and more if you want to go beyond the basic features.
Some of the basic features that are essential for every taxi-booking app are as follows-
- Booking Taxi
It is one of the most important features that allow users to add their from and to locations to book rides for their preferred location.
- Calculating Fares
Another feature is to calculate the trip fare based on the pricing model before the start of the trip to help users get an approximate fare based on taxi type, distance, etc.
- Fetching Trip Details
Ensure that the app you are building offers a cost estimate in advance to help passengers review the trip details like taxi type, cost for different rides, etc. before confirming the ride.
- Searching Driver
After the passenger agrees with the trip details, the request is assigned to the nearest driver that is available, which then helps to connect the passenger with the driver.
- Confirming Trip
Once the driver is assigned a new order, they have the option to either accept or reject the trip, which will then be assigned to the next available driver.
- GPS Monitoring
This feature helps to show the exact user location on the map, which helps the driver reach the location without connecting users directly.
- Ride-Sharing
Another feature is for users who are traveling together to a particular location & want to save money by splitting the bill.
- Payment Processing
Your app must offer a payment feature that allows users to make payments seamlessly through multiple ways such as QR codes, bank cards, mobile wallets, etc.
- Rating & Feedback
After the trip is completed, the passenger must be able to submit ratings and feedback for the driver, which will impact their future trips.
Steps to Follow for the Development of Taxi Booking Apps
In this section, we will help you build a successful taxi booking app by breaking down the development process into different phases as below-
Conduct Thorough Market Research
Ensure that you can conduct thorough research to understand the different dynamics that change over time. This will help you understand customer preferences, demographics, travel patterns, and solutions available in the market. You can figure out the weaknesses and strengths of similar apps and turn this into an opportunity to customize your app as per the target audience’s expectations.
For instance, you can offer shared rides for residential and commercial reasons and also come up with bike rides or self-drive scooters around educational areas or long-term rental services for younger working professionals.
Create a Well-Planned Business Model
Another step in the development process is to build a business plan considering various aspects such as value proposition for each stakeholder, core competencies, cost structure, revenue stream, customer segments, etc. Additionally, you can also create a revenue model that helps to identify various revenue sources and prepare the pricing structure of each.
Most ride-booking apps generate revenue through multiple means, such as –
- Drivers – a 20%-30% charge on each bill
- App Users/Passengers – a flat charge per booking and a cancellation charge for each canceled ride
- Promotions –charges for promoting other brands through the app
App Development Phase
The most important phase is to start the actual app development process through the help of the renowned app development partner. Whether you want to build a new taxi booking app similar to 13cabs or update an existing one, it is advisable to get help from developers who have the expertise to build the best apps aligned with the latest features suitable for both drivers and passengers.
Deployment & Maintenance
The next step is to perform an in-depth security audit and rigorous testing before deploying the app in live environments. Make sure that you comply with app launch guidelines and raise awareness through multiple marketing channels. Additionally, take time to update app features and fix bugs to keep the app relevant and safe from cyber-attacks.
Final Thoughts
After going through the blog, we can say that shared transportation is becoming a booming business, and there will be more demand for taxi-booking apps. Customers today expect sustainable and affordable taxi rides in crowded cities, which means it’s a great idea to build a taxi-booking app like 13cabs. However, as competition is quite high, make sure that you build the app aligned with the latest technologies such as AI, machine learning, blockchain, cloud computing, etc. to make it a grand success.
Being a renowned mobile app development company in Australia, Clavax is the right development partner that has a bunch of experts for building innovative and smart taxi-booking apps. Connect with us today to turn your business idea into a tangible outcome at an affordable development cost.