Did you know the primary cause of air pollution???
Transportation solely accounts for causing 56 percent of the total air pollution.
Most vehicles consume gasoline that produces harmful chemicals on burning and it ultimately burns our environment too. Hence, the best possible solution to control this ongoing damage is Carpooling. What is required on the part of our society is to curb the number of on-road cars and implement carpooling wherever possible.
Both corporate sectors and Governments should mandate to opt for carpooling actively and let everyone know how carpooling can solve the issue of air pollution to such a great extent. Carpooling has so many benefits starting from purifying the air to saving money to make people both physically and mentally relaxed. Thus, seeking the advantages of carpooling even entrepreneurs are looking forward to investing in this lucrative market.
In the carpooling service market, there are already some existing key players and to make a powerful entry one needs to have a robust ride-sharing app solution. You can even hire a good carpooling app development company for your project and then with a proper strategy can enter the market.
In this blog, we will have a thorough discussion on the popularity of the BlaBlaCar app, key features of an on-demand carpooling app solution, development process, and the cost to develop an app like BlaBlaCar. Let’s begin!
Table of Contents
Overview of BlaBlaCar App
Founded in the year 2006, BlaBlaCar is worldwide popular for providing proficient carpooling services. The company works on a commission basis where it offers a platform for the passengers and the drivers to connect. For this, a fixed commission is charged by BlaBlaCar. There is a website and a mobile application of BlaBlaCar through which the passengers can book a vehicle and travel across cities.
The primary vision behind building such a useful taxi-sharing app solution was to help the masses in resolving their daily commuting issues. Carpooling is a way better alternative to individual-occupancy cars as it saves people from daily fatigue, as well as helps people make money.
As per the data, in the year 2021, BlaBlaCar’s total number of downloads has already passed 100 million with a 71% increase in the total BlaBlaCar revenue in the period between 2018-2019. In almost 400 cities in 22 countries, BlaBlaCar is serving taxi-sharing services to the masses. Hence, it shows the popularity and the growing demand for carpooling services.
How do Carpooling Apps work?
In the complete process of how to create a carpooling app, there is also required to understand how such an app works. Following are the steps that show how a carpooling app works:
1. Placing a Request
The riders search for the available rides for their selected route. And after searching for a ride, they place the request to book a sharing taxi.
2. Booking Request Acceptance
The drivers as per their availability, accept or reject the ride. If the ride is accepted, then they reach the location on the scheduled date and time. In case of rejection, it is passed to another driver.
3. Payment
Once the ride is completed, the passengers pay for the trip in cash or through integrated wallets, cards, or other way.
4. Reviews & Ratings
Both passengers and drivers can provide ratings and reviews based on their trip experience.
Read Also: Taxi App Development Cost & Features
Must-Have Features In A Carpooling App Like BlaBlaCar
While you think of how to build a ride-sharing app, the primary point of discussion with the mobile app development company is the features that are required to be integrated into the application. These features are divided into 3 different sections, i.e., the rider panel, the driver panel, and the admin panel. Let’s take a brief look at it:
User/Rider Panel
Following is the list of key features to be there in the user panel of an on-demand carpooling application:
Sign-Up
To use the app, the primary requirement is to create an account or register on the app through email id, contact number, or by signing through social media account.
Geolocation
This feature helps users to track the real-time location of the drivers so that they can see how long it will take for the driver to reach the pick-up location.
Ride Searching
With this feature, the users can search the presently available rides by mentioning the pick-up and drop destination. There will be a complete list of all the available rides with their respective fare mentioned.
Payment Gateway
There are numerous payment gateways integrated during the on-demand app development process for the convenience of the users such as payment via debit or credit cards, UPIs, wallet, cash, etc.
ETA
At the time of booking, with this feature, the users are notified with the ETA i.e., the estimated time of arrival of the driver for pick up.
Fare Estimation
While booking a pool car, the users also get to know the amount they need to pay as the fare for their journey in the estimated fare. It is an approximate fare estimation notified to the riders before placing the final booking request.
Reviews & Ratings
This feature allows the users to provide reviews and ratings for the trip taken as per their journey experience. There are several options where riders can also report any sort of issue they have faced while traveling.
In-app Chat
There is an in-app chat feature that allows messaging and calling the drivers. Riders can communicate with the drivers for location, time of arrival, or any other assistance.
Emergency
The users can press the emergency button in the application for raising alarm alerts if they face any difficulty during their journey.
Favorites
This feature saves users’ time as it lets them quickly book a similar ride as their previous booking. This is a needful feature for frequent travellers.
Promotions
There are several coupons and promotional offers given to the users to reduce the fare. The riders can use these coupons while booking to get the available discounts on their rides.
Driver Panel
Here is the list of the necessary features that every driver panel of all the ride-sharing applications has:
Registration
The drivers need to register by creating an account and verifying their identity. They can log in through email id or contact number.
Booking
This feature let the driver cancel or accept any booking request. It is in the hands of drivers whether they accept or reject any ride as per their availability.
Navigation
At the time of the ride-sharing app development process, this is one of the most important features of the driver panel as it helps them to get real-time information about the different routes and traffic on-route while reaching the location of the riders.
Fare Estimation
Like the users, the drivers also get notified about the estimated fare they will get for the trip they will take. Once the fare estimations are shown at the time of booking requests, drivers can accept or reject a ride based on that.
Reports
To check the daily, weekly, or monthly earnings on the trips taken in a particular time interval, the drivers make use of this feature. Adding this feature takes the cost to develop a ridesharing app towards a little higher side but still, it makes your app functional.
Reviews
The drivers can also rate the passengers as per their behaviour towards them during the journey.
Admin Panel
To manage the users and the drivers, even the admin panel also has certain features. Let’s check them:
Dashboard
There is a complete dashboard for admins to manage the vehicles, view and check the key stats, and for sending notifications to the drivers and the riders.
Driver Management
This feature allows the admin to manage the drivers and the respective aspects like adding new drivers, managing payments, removing, & blocking/unblocking drivers
Passenger Management
With this, the admin can check about all the rides taken by the passengers, the reviews, feedback, and ratings provided by them.
Offers & Discounts
Admin takes care of all the offers and discounts. From time to time, the riders are given plenty of offers so that they use the taxi-sharing services more and more.
Commission/Payment Management
There are set fixed commission rates on every trip that is to be paid to the drivers.
Reports
This feature falls under the advanced feature that increases the overall ridesharing app development cost, but this allows the admin to view reports on the marketing performance of the application and the working of the integrated business operations. And that is why it is worth add-on to the on-demand carpooling app.
Read Also: How to Make a Taxi App Like Uber?
Monetization Model for Ridesharing App
You might put huge consideration over the carpooling app development cost but one more aspect that needs to be thought about is how the app would help you earn money.
So, here is the monetization model for BlaBlaCar clone app development:
1. Advertisements
It is the most dominant and primary source of earning revenues for a carpooling app owner. It works for applications that do not charge any sort of downloading fees. Therefore, when the users tap on the advertisement, there is a particular fee that is paid to the company for displaying the ad on the carpooling app. This is basically earning revenue from third-party ads.
2. In-App Purchase
The second important source of earning money for a carpooling app company is the in-app purchases where the drivers pay an additional amount for being at the top of the list in the available cars. When the users search for the available taxis for reaching a particular location, there are several drivers, but the users usually select from starting ones. Therefore, to have a higher number of bookings, the drivers pay an extra amount to be there at the top.
3. Cancellation Fees
When the users book a ride but after a particular time frame, if they cancel the ride then they need to pay a cancellation fee to compensate for the loss incurred because of last time cancellations.
4. Freemium Model
The last source of revenue is the freemium model where the users need to pay a fee for accessing the advanced features of the carpooling application.
Most Popular Carpooling Apps
For every new player, it is mandated to know about the already existing players in the industry. In taxi-sharing services, the following companies hold a renowned position across the globe:
Development Process of a Carpooling App Like BlaBlaCar
The development process of any application holds maximum significance as it helps you to know about all the involved steps while creating an on-demand app. In this section of the taxi-sharing app development process, you would get insights into how to build an app like BlaBlaCar and related aspects.
Let’s check the essential steps of an on-demand app development process:
Step 1: Research & Niche Selection
This step needs core research to know about existing competitors, users’ preferences, existing loopholes, potential target market, and the behaviour of the audiences. Once this research is done, you can begin with the app design phase.
Step 2: Designing the On-demand App
It depends upon the UI design only that how user-friendly, seamless, and functional your app would be. An app should be responsive and interactive enough so that it can provide an augmented user experience.
Step 3: App Development
In this step, the tech stack is finalized, the codes are developed, and there are used various advanced technologies to make the application unique and responsive.
Step 4: Application Testing
Before the final launch, the app is tested, and it is considered the trial period where the testers test the app and see if it is completely error-free and bug-free or not. Once it passes all the tests, then only it can be launched.
Step 5: Launch of the App
This is the most crucial step where an app is ready to launch and be used by the users. You launch it on the dedicated platform and check customer reviews. If they find any issues in its working, then the app will be updated by the related firm. Therefore, app maintenance is an interlinked part of app launching to help get the users the best possible experience.
Read Also: Profitable Taxi App Business Ideas to Follow in 2022
Tech Stack Required for Taxi Booking App Development
There is a particular tech stack required at the time of app development. For developing a carpooling app, the following technology is required for the mentioned functionalities:
- For Cloud Environment: Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud
- For Database: PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, and SQLite
- For Third-party Integrations: PayPal, Stripe, and Braintree
- For Reporting & Analysis: Mix Panel, Google Analytics
- For Social Media Integrations: Facebook, Google SDK
- For Geo-Targeting: API Google Maps, Google Places
- For Programming Languages: Ruby on Rails, Node.js, PFP, and Java
- For Data Backup: Amazon S3
- For mBaaS: Red Hat, Parse, Firebase, and Oracle
How Much Does It Cost to Develop a Carpooling App Like the BlaBlaCar?
While you learn about how to make a rideshare app, it is also necessary to check which factors would impact the overall cost of developing car pool app. Following is the list of all those factors:
1. Platform Selection for the Application
To launch an app there is a need to have a specific platform for that and this affects the cost to develop carpooling app to a great extent. As per your target audience, you need to check which platform you will select. If you are likely to build a native app then you need to select one platform out of iOS and Android but if you are looking to develop a cross-platform app then you need to hire expert mobile app developers and thus it will impact the cost of development too.
2. Team Structure for Carpooling App
When you are looking for on-demand app development then its progress, time, and cost all are in the hands of the assigned team who is working on your project. Thus, it is necessary to create a proper team structure so that further it does not impact the cost to build carpooling app like BlaBlaCar. Following is the required team structure:
- Business Analyst for understanding the core business requirements and purpose for building an application.
- Project Manager for handling the entire project i.e., from scratch to the final phase of app development.
- UX/UI Designers to make sure that your on-demand taxi-sharing app is unique and creative enough to fetch the attention of the masses.
- Carpooling App Developers to develop a scalable and reliable application for the selected platform. If you select an iOS platform, then you need to hire iOS app developers and if you select Android, then you need to hire Android app developers.
- Quality Analyst Professionals to make sure that the application developed is free of error and bugs. These quality analysts test the app on various checklists to make sure the clients get the best app solution.
3. App Designing Tool
While you look for how to build a carpooling app and the cost of development, it is essential to know about the various design tools as they make a huge difference in the total cost of development. For an app design, there is used animation content, tools like Sketch, Maze, Marvel, etc., and other design elements too. In a few cases, the app development company may charge an additional fee for journey mapping and UI/UX research. Thus, all such aspects need to be checked before the final call to keep the cost under budget.
4. App Testing Tools
The last cost-deciding factor is the testing tools. These tools are used to test the quality and functioning of the application. If there are more advanced and modern tools for app testing, then it can slightly increase the cost to develop carpooling app.
Considering all the above-mentioned factors and other related aspects, the average cost to build carpooling app like BlaBlaCar ranges from $15,000 to $25,000. And further, the overall cost can vary depending upon the feature integration and design that can be changed as per the requirements.
Summing Up
In the past few years, there has been seen an extensive demand for carpooling services because of increased air pollution and expensive rides. People prefer opting for sharing taxis for long-distance journeys so that it becomes easy on their pocket as well as they can travel with comfort. Seeking an opportunity out of this growing demand, several entrepreneurs are looking forward to building an on-demand carpooling app that can offer taxi-sharing services to the masses. Hence, the businesses are hiring a taxi app development company to get a scalable, reliable, and unique application.
Hope this blog has helped you understand various aspects related to how to create a carpooling app and what will be the average cost to build carpooling app like BlaBlaCar. SemiDot Infotech is one of the most reliable and trustworthy web and mobile app development companies that have built several on-demand applications to serve its clients’ various requirements. To get your project done and get a scalable app solution you can surely hire them.
