Skip to main content
All CollectionsManaging drivers (Ride-hailing)
Setting up your Ride-hailing platform
Setting up your Ride-hailing platform

The A to Z to your new ride-hailing business

A
Written by ATOM Support
Updated over 3 months ago

The ride-hailing platform of ATOM Mobility is designed to support taxi operations of differently-sized services that require mobile apps for end-users for ride requesting, mobile apps for the drivers for accepting ride requests, and an operations management dashboard for the merchants to manage operational settings, driver information, view analytical details, etc.

Let's get acquainted with the ride-hailing dashboard, review the steps needed to set up your platform, and see how users and drivers experience the app's flow.

Our dashboard

The dashboard is the command center of your ride-hailing business. Here, you can create a fleet, define an operational zone, set your pricing strategy, manage your drivers and customers, get statistics about your operation, and more.

On the left side of your dashboard, you will find a shortcut list to the different sections in which your platform is divided, which are:

  • Dashboard: The platform's landing page. It shows valuable information about your operation, including your rides, customers, drivers, analytics, and revenue. Clicking on the headers will take you to that specific page of your platform.

  • Dispatch: Used to create rides manually in case you offer an alternative service (phone, email) to the regular app-ordering operation. If you create a new ride manually, you will need to enter the same information that your customers would need to enter in their app (origin and destination, vehicle class, date and time of the trip) and also some contact information of the end customer (name, phone, email).

  • Rides: Information about your current and past rides.

  • Drivers: Here, you will find information about your drivers, their status, and their geolocation. You can also create new drivers here.

  • Customers: Information and statistics about your customers, status, and activity.

  • Analytics: General statistics about your rides, new user registrations, cost, drivers, heatmaps, etc. You can read more about it in our analytics article.

  • More: The platform's backend, where you can set up your marketing strategy, add subaccounts, personalize your app, and more.

Steps to configure your platform

Operational zone

First, you must define an operational zone where drivers can accept ride requests under More > Settings > Operational zones:

To define it, you first need to choose a subaccount. You can do this by clicking "Admin (Global)" at the top-right corner of your screen and selecting the appropriate subaccount for this particular zone.

Once you're under the correct sub-account, you will be able to Add a new zone:

The new zone will be created, and finally, you should be able to define a polygon: a geometrical shape over a map that will delimitate your fleet's action area.

To create the polygon, simply navigate to the point in the map where you want to start drawing and click through different points sequentially to craft the shape of your area.

Once you click through all the points and return to your initial point, a new operational zone will be created for the polygon you just defined:

At this point, you can edit the new zone's settings: add a name (under "Edit settings"), redefine your polygon, and delete the polygon and the zone.

Create Vehicle classes

To create vehicle models, navigate to More > Settings > Vehicle classes (see the first screenshot in this guide).

Under the Vehicle Classes menu, click on the "Add new class" button. You will then be prompted to provide the following information (mandatory fields are highlighted in bold):

  • Class title (in English and all the other languages active in your platform);

  • A vehicle class image;

  • Vehicle class icon set;

  • A subaccount where this new vehicle class will be active;

  • Pricing information (price to start, per minute, km, etc., based on your preferences);

  • Dynamic pricing.

Once your vehicle is created, you must link your new vehicle class in the settings of your operational zone:

Add drivers

To add drivers, go to the Drivers section and click on the "Add driver" button.


Fill in the fields below (mandatory are marked in bold):

  • Driver photo;

  • Name;

  • Surname;

  • Personal code (ID number required in some countries);

  • E-mail;

  • Phone number;

  • Password (that your driver will use to access their driver app);

  • Vehicle model;

  • Year;

  • Plate number;

  • Taximeter number (applicable in some countries);

  • Car color;

  • Subaccount (delimited action areas for your business);

  • Vehicle classes (Up to five from a predefined list you must create);

  • Carrier taxpayer code, carrier name, and carrier address (required in some countries);

  • Driver commission, %;

  • Enable cash payments.

Press save and your new driver record will be created.
​

NB! It's also possible to upload driver records in bulk instead of creating them one by one.

Click on the "Import drivers data" button below the "Add driver" button, and a new window will open with information on the format of the file you need to upload to have the drivers created:

​More settings

Under this section, you will be able to create and edit various settings:

Below you will find an explanation of each section:

  • Marketing

    • Promo codes: You can use these in marketing activities to attract more customers to your app and motivate them to use your service by giving them free credits. Read more about it here;

    • Push-notifications: managed by ATOM's integration with OneSignal. You can read more about this service here;

    • Email marketing: managed by ATOM's integration with Intercom. You can check Intercom's Help guides to see how to reach out to your users via email via an Intercom account (you will need to ).

  • Team and accounts

    • Team permissions: Where to determine roles and access of your team. Check our article on this topic.

    • Subaccounts: In case your service is operating in multiple locations or if you work as a franchise provider, you can make use of the subaccount function to separate the franchisees you work with or make sure that you can apply different pricing in different regions you are operating in. Check out more about this important function in this article.

    • Corporate accounts: Provide 3rd party companies with a separate dashboard to offer your services to their employees. Corporate accounts allow other businesses to invite employees, set monthly ride limits, and cover all rides via a monthly invoice. More information about this functionality here.

    • Employee activity log: Here, you can take a look at the actions (refund rides, bonuses given, charge customers, or create rides) taken by your team members in the dashboard

  • Personalization

    • App localization: In this article, you can learn more about how to set up your app's translation.

    • Vehicle map icons: You can edit the images your customers will see when checking cars in-app.

  • Settings

    • System preferences: Where you can set up part of the core functionality of your platform. You can read more about it here. Ride-hailing specific settings that you should configure for your service include:
      - Enabling/disabling ride acceptance in case they are paid in cash;
      - Response time for drivers (how long each driver has to accept a ride request in the app);
      - Free cancellation period (optional, if you want to give customers a chance to cancel their ride for a short amount of time since they requested it);
      - Auto cancellation (how long the user will wait for any driver on your platform to accept their ride request before ti times out in the app);
      - Cancelled rides refund destination (user's wallet on the mobile app or payment method);
      - Choice of Scheduled or On-demand rides, or a mix of both (based on your business model);
      - Driver's balance (optional setting that allows you to control what is the amount in which the driver can accept rides paid in cash from the suers.

    • Operational zones: These are already covered in this section.

    • Vehicle classes: More info about them can be found here.

    • Dynamic pricing: You can check and add new pricing options with multipliers (e.g., a 1,5 multiplicator would add a 50% price surcharge) that can be enabled permanently or at certain times/days. You can use this to regulate your prices based on different situations (rush hour, a sporting event, etc.).

While we have covered the basic functionalities of a ride-hailing dashboard, we would like you to read our other articles to broaden your knowledge on these and other topics and to contact us at help@atommobility.com if you need more help.

The ride-hailing apps

Customer experience

We can go ahead and start with your customers' ride-hailing experience when using your app.

Upon opening the app, your customers will be asked to enable their GPS if their location services are off:
​

Once the GPS is active, they can start booking by tapping the "Where to" button to choose a destination. They will also see their current location marked on the map (see the green dot on the screenshot below):


​NB! The bottom menu shows the active modules in your app. If you only have the ride-hailing module, no menu will appear.

Customers will be redirected to the "Your route" menu, where they will see their current location and can choose a destination by manually entering an address in the address bar or choosing a spot on a map. They can also add several stops to their route by tapping the "+" button:

Once they enter their choice, they'll be asked to confirm it after seeing the destination on their map:

Once the ride is confirmed, the app will search for online drivers who aren't busy with rides. If that's the case, customers will see a new screen with vehicle class options from which they can choose:

In the case above, only drivers with a "Business" vehicle class are online, and customers will be charged according to the pricing settings defined in your dashboard. We can also see an example of dynamic pricing, where prices are higher due to increased demand.

Here, customers can also choose their payment method (we see that this driver also accepts cash payments) and add a comment to the driver if necessary.

They can then tap on the "Request a ride" button to order a ride right away or choose the button to select the pick-up time and date. If the ride is scheduled for a future date, the app will only look for an available driver shortly before the ride starts:

Now that the customer has confirmed the ride, they will see a "Searching for a driver" message while the app offers the possibility of accepting it to all active drivers (we will cover this process from the driver's point of view in the next section of this guide). When the ride is accepted, your customers will see information about the driver's current location, how long it will take for the driver to reach them, and the license plate and color of the car:

Here, customers will also see the photo we uploaded when we created the driver and call them if something needs clarification.

Once the driver arrives, the bottom message will slightly change:

The ride can now start! Your customer can finally sit back and relax while your app provides information about their current ride:

Once they reach their final destination, the ride ends, and your customer is presented with the total cost. They can also leave a rating and a comment. You can track your customers' ratings and comments on your dashboard:

That's it! One more happy customer!

Driver experience

Now, let's take a look at the ride-hailing process from the driver's point of view.

Drivers need to mark themselves as online by tapping on the upper-side toggle, and ensure that the GPS on their phones is active to accept rides:

When a ride is requested, the closest online driver to the customer will receive a notification. They have a defined amount of time (which can be set up in the dashboard) to accept the ride, or it will be passed on to the next available driver. They can also skip a ride manually by tapping on the "Skip" button:

At this point, the driver has accepted the ride and should drive towards your customer (they can use the "Navigate" function in the app to open the map navigation app of their choice on their phone). Also, they can now contact customers in the same way that customers can call your drivers:

Once they reach the pick-up point, they can swipe the slider to indicate to the customers that they have arrived. When customers get in the car and the driver is ready, they can start the ride thanks to the newly appeared slider:

At this point, the ride starts. When the driver reaches the destination, swipes on the "End the ride" slider to finish the ride:

NB! You might have noticed that drivers can cancel the rides (see screenshots above). If they tap on the "Cancel ride" button, they will be prompted to choose a reason for canceling the ride:

The ride has ended, and the price to be paid will be shown on your driver's screen. If you have "Activate adjusted ride price (driver may adjust the total ride price)" active in your dashboard, your drivers can adjust the final cost of the ride:

Once the ride is over, you can see data about it under the Rides section of your dashboard. Here, you should also be able to refund the ride if necessary:

We hope you found our guide helpful! But again, if you still have any doubts, please reach out to us at help@atommobility.com, and we will do our best to help you.

Did this answer your question?