~Heckermen
A IIIT Cab Sharing System
Cab sharing is a very popular mode of commute and has been prevalent in IIIT for quite a period of time. However the Facebook page used for it does a bad job of organization. The issues include the clutter of notifications, the repetitions of the requests from multiple people for a trip from close source, destination and timings and so much more.
For this issue, our solution is plusOne. plusOne aims at easing the process of Cab Sharing between the IIIT campus and important places such as Airports, Railway Stations and Bus Stations. You need to log in with your IIIT account and provide your journey details. Then you can search for people travelling at around the same time as yours and to the same destination. You get to pick the cluster you want to travel with. If you are not satisfied with any of the clusters recommended or if no clusters are available, you get to create your own.
plusOne recommends the most suitable clusters for your journey based on various factors. If the user “+1”s a trip he gets the contact details of the “owner” of the trip so that the user can contact the “owner” about their travel. plusOne acts as a platform between people trying to share their expenses and helps them communicate among each other.
Check out the web app here.
We did the current implementation in the short time allotted. But there’s a huge scope for improvement. We included just the frequently used cab sharing request locations. But this can be expanded by linking Maps APIs. We could also connect users along the same route, hence minimising the cost of the whole system.
The web app can be expanded into a native app with push notifications and with better communication features. Also we have only developed a platform for connecting people and not taking part in the interaction. This can be improved by implementing a request-based system which will be well complemented by the push notifications.
PS: Guess the background map... :P