Do you know it is now possible to run the taxi dispatch business from a cloud-hosted web portal?

First of all, let us understand what is the importance and need for a web portal to run a taxi dispatch business. Many people find it curious to try the application without actually downloading the app. Now a customer can simply register himself/herself on the web portal and start using your taxi service.

Having a web-based booking system often allows the service to be available across all platforms. So, it would be easier for a customer having a basic phone or their computer at home to book a ride from the web portal with much ease.

The user interface is designed in such a way that is simple for everyone to book and use the platform.

Let’s take a look at how a customer would book a taxi through the web-based portal of the Nikola platform.

Step 1:  The customer can enter the web URL and is welcomed as a guest visitor to the home page.

The homepage is divided into 2 sections as shown below.

On the left-hand side, there is the menu tab with the icons, each denoting a feature and a booking screen. On top of the booking screen, there are 3 options available to book a ride. One is the city ride, the other one is the hourly rental and the last one is the ride sharing feature.

The default booking mode is configured as city ride.

On the right-hand side, there is a comprehensive map of the city powered by Google Maps and it is well integrated into the system.

To book a ride the customer has to enter the pickup location and drop location as shown below. While entering the address the autocomplete feature throws suggestions as they type.

Once the source and the destination address is entered and the customer wants to continue with the booking process, he is prompted to log in to the system.

Step 2: The customer can sign up using his mobile number. The registration process begins with the user entering their mobile number and a One Time Password (OTP) being sent to their mobile for verification.

Once the mobile number is authenticated, the user has to provide other details like name, email address, and a password.

Step 3: After successfully signing up, the customer has to switch to the login menu, and log in to the system by entering the login credentials.

Step 3: On the top right corner of the booking screen, there is a drop-down menu with the name of the customer. The menu has two items namely profile and log out.

If you click on the profile button, a page appears showing all the details of the registered user.

If the customer decides to sign out from the portal, he has to click on the log out button and it is done.

Step 4:  After successfully signing into the portal the customer is taken back to the booking page from where it was left earlier.

Step 5: After the confirmation from the user, the booking menu shows additional features related to the ride and each one of them can be configured individually.

Let’s go through each feature one by one and explore the importance of each feature.

First one is the price feature. Here a customer can choose his favorite vehicle from the pool of options available. Every vehicle has a price tag attached to it.

Next to the price tag is a tooltip/info button. Clicking on it shows the complete details of the fare.

The second feature is the payment mode feature. There are four payment options available like COD, PayPal, Card, and Walletbay. The customer can choose his desired mode of payment. If nothing is chosen the default one is the cash on delivery mode.

The third one is the ride selection feature. There are 2 modes available to book a ride. One is the ride now feature and the other one is schedule a ride later feature. We shall discuss both of these features in detail in the upcoming sections.

Step 6: After selecting all the necessary details the customer now has to confirm the booking by clicking on the confirm button that appears to the bottom of the booking menu. Immediately a request is processed and the system searches for the nearest available drivers.

A timer is set for one minute and starts counting till a driver accepts the request.

Once a driver accepts the request, the timer stops and the request confirmation message is displayed.

Similarly, on the driver app, the request is pinged and the driver accepts or rejects the request as he sees fit.

Step 7: After the driver accepts the request, all the steps that follow right from the arrival at the pickup point to the end of the trip are demonstrated in the following images.

Step 8: After the trip is complete, a detailed invoice is presented.

Step 9: Next the customer has to rate the ride and complete the trip.

Once the customer rates the ride, an entry is made automatically in the ride history column.

On the driver app, similarly, the driver has to accept cash and rate the customer to complete the ride.

Step 10: If the customer selects the ride later feature, a window pop-ups that show the date and time picker.

The customer then has to select a date for the ride from the calendar, by default it takes the same day.

Then the customer has to enter the time for pickup with a threshold of 30 minutes.

After the booking is done an entry is automatically made in the ride history column.

After the trip is complete the customer can repeat the process once again if he sees fit.

FAQ’s

What is Nikola Web Portal?

Nikola web portal is a cloud-hosted web platform that helps the customer to schedule a ride from a laptop or a tablet PC. All the customer has to do is register himself on the portal and sign in to avail all the services that are offered on the platform.

Is the platform secure?

The developers have all the care to make the platform as secure as possible.