01
Design
Development
The Client
Private Drivers is a young Belgian company that allows customers to have a private driver for a day. The driver of Private Drivers will drive the car of the customer to wherever he or she needs to be.
The company brings students seeking an extra income together with customers seeking to gain time when they need to be on the road.
02
The challenge
Rides were booked by making an online reservation, sending an email or by phone. For Private Drivers this used to be an intensive manual process.
03
The solution
To support the expansion of the business that Private Drivers seeks,
Pegus Digital designed and developed a mobile app that is written in NativeScript and will be used by drivers and customers on both iPhone and Android phones.
Booking a ride
For customers, the most important part of the app is booking a ride. The address selection for the start and end points of the ride have been made user friendly with auto-complete suggestions backed by Google Maps. When the booking is done, the server algorithm will send out the ride details to 3 potential drivers. When drivers accept that they potentially can do the ride, the customer can select one of them to actually do the ride.
Estimated ride cost
The app will show the estimated cost of the ride immediately to the customer. This used to be an intensive manual process as there are quite some things to take into account for the calculation. The price depends not only on how long the ride is, but also on what time of day the ride is done (day/night); if it is a normal weekday, a weekend, or a holiday; or if the ride will take multiple days.
Driver rating & selection
Customers can rate the driver and express their preference for a certain driver. If that driver is available, the driver selection algorithm will prefer that one when selecting 3 drivers to propose to the customer for a ride.
Driver notifications
Drivers will get notifications if there are new requests and they can immediately show their interest in the ride. They can view all rides they applied for and all rides they have been selected for. The mobile app will also show them the potential amount of money they will be able to make when they do the ride.
Admin web interface
The web interface uses server-side rendered HTML using the Thymeleaf library. The web interface is made responsive so it scales nicely between phone and desktop as the company administrator is also on the road a lot.
Server software
The server software is written in Java using the Spring framework. It exposes a REST API for the mobile app, as well as a web interface for the company administrator.
