How Google Maps
Plaorm Helps Ride
Sharing Services
Improve the Customer
and Driver Experience
while Increasing
Overall Eciency
Google Cloud Whitepaper
10.24.18
Google Maps Platform helps ride sharing services, delivery
companies and businesses that manage vehicle eets improve driver
navigation and the efciency of their eets. Developers can embed a
Google Maps-powered turn-by-turn navigation experience into their
applications and retrieve data about a driver’s journey. Drivers no
longer have to switch between apps to get directions or information
about their next job. And with programmatic control and insight into
drivers’ behavior, companies can better allocate drivers, and decrease
drivers’ idle time and wait times for customers. Early users of the
ridesharing solution have found it offers signicant benets, including
a 4% reduction in drive times, and up to a 48% increase in accuracy of
ETAs (estimated time of arrival).
The ridesharing solution provides turn-by-turn navigation with voice
guidance, real-time trafc information and rerouting, guidance
control, an interactive map with driving perspective and a
customizable driver user interface. Unlike consumer navigation
Early users of the
ridesharing solution
have found it
oers signicant
benets, including
a 4% reduction in
drive times.
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apps, the ridesharing solution provides an integrated and tailored
navigation experience, while also providing data to businesses
about drivers’ navigation behavior. It enables partners and providers
to make real-time decisions about use of their drivers and eets,
and ensures that customers get the best service possible. And unlike
other in-app navigation solutions, the Google Maps Platform solution
offers a proven and familiar experience from the Google Maps
consumer app and leverages high-quality, global mapping capabilities.
This white paper describes the benets of the Google Maps Platform
ridesharing solution and details results seen from an early adopter,
mytaxi. mytaxi lets passengers book taxi rides using its apps, which
have been downloaded more than ten million times. The service is
available in more than 70 cities with a network of more than 120,000
afliated taxis throughout Europe.
A Beer Experience for Customers
The key to the success for ride-sharing companies is providing fast,
safe rides at reasonable prices. So we’ll start off the white paper
describing how the the solution does this, and helps provide
customers with a better overall experience.
A common frustration for riders is inaccurate driver ETAs.
Ridesharing services do not have the most accurate position of the
driver or the direction in which they are heading. The service provider
can sometimes select a driver that is heading away from the
passenger, resulting in a much higher ETA. With the ridesharing
solution, the app provides a much more accurate road position and
heading, and can be far more precise in its ETA prediction. Improving
ETAs can decrease frustrations for riders and increase their likelihood
to trust and use the ridesharing service.
mytaxi’s use of the Google Maps Platform ridesharing solution in nine
countries throughout Europe. Using the solution increased the ETAs
accuracy by 23% on average, with as much as a 48% increase in some
With the ridesharing
solution, the app
provides a much
more accurate road
position and
heading, and so can
be far more precise
in its ETA prediction.
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cities. Prior to implementing the ridesharing solution, mytaxi was
overestimating or underestimating ETAs far more frequently than
after its use. The following chart provides a detailed breakdown of
ETAs versus ATAs.
Accuracy of ETAs
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Overestimate 34%
Accurate Estimate 31%
Underestimate 35%
ETA New
ETA Old
Improving ETAs should increase customer loyalty, decrease
cancellations and increase the number of rides they take per month.
mytaxi Driver App Product Manager Robert Quitsch explains, “By
providing more accurate ETAs, the Google Maps Platform ridesharing
solution has helped make sure we’re better satisfying our customers.”
The ridesharing solution makes for satised customers in another
way as well: It shortens the length of rides. mytaxi found that ride
duration has dropped by 4%. Quitsch says, “People taking taxis want
to get somewhere fast -- for example, to an airport, train station or
restaurant. The ridesharing solution helps us make sure that happens.
And customers often pay less when the trip is shorter, so they can
save money as well.”
There’s one nal benet for customers, not easily measurable: They’re
likely to feel safer during the ride, because their drivers aren’t
distracted by switching between apps.
A Beer Driver Experience
Constantly switching between a driver app and a consumer
navigation app can be inefcient and unsafe. The Google Maps
Platform ridesharing solution improves driver experience, because
drivers can focus on getting to their next destination without having to
switch between their company’s app and a navigation app.
Drivers spend on average 4% less time on each ride when using the
ride sharing solution. Services like mytaxi can assign simpler and
safe routes because they know the heading and side of the road.
Trafc information provided by the ridesharing solution has been
helpful for drivers. “We’ve found that the trafc information is really
gold for them,” Quitsch says. “They don’t get stuck in trafc and can
get to their pickups and destinations more quickly and easily.
Integrated navigation makes it far easier for them to nd pickup spots
and their ultimate destinations. And even drivers that know the best
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routes cannot know the real-time trafc situation on every street, but
can nd that out directly in the app. All this is a big contributor to the
average ride duration dropping 4%.”
Quitsch adds, “We saw an increase in driver ratings and passenger
sentiment when we began using the Google Maps Platform
ridesharing solution. We believe this is due to more accurate ETAs
and faster routes.”
The solution may yield nancial benets for drivers as well. The data
helps mytaxi assign rides closer to them, so drivers spend less time
driving to pick up passengers. That, combined with the reduction in
average ride time, may add up to more trips per day. In addition,
arriving close to ETA and getting passengers to their destinations
more quickly may lead to a better relationship with customers,
possibly resulting in higher tips. Because of all this, drivers are
likely to view the in-app navigation as as a tool to help them with
trafc information and driving directions, not to tell them how to
do their jobs.
A survey of drivers across Europe who use the mytaxi app with built-in
navigation found that drivers are now more satised with their
experiences than previously. More than 74% say they found the new
navigation feature a useful addition to the driver app. Drivers surveyed
called it a “massive improvement” over the previous app, as well as
“brilliant,” “excellent,” and “well done.”
Improved Company Operations
When a company integrates the ridesharing solution into its app,
it can gather location and other information about drivers, offering
insight into drivers’ navigation behavior. This can improve the
business’s overall efciency. Highly accurate driver location and
ETA data helps companies make better allocation decisions and
provide more precise wait times, leading to increased driver
utilization, decreased transportation costs and an improved
customer experience.
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Because a company has more accurate driver location data, it can
more effectively assign drivers to passengers near them. For
example, it can tell when a driver is close to dropping off a passenger
at a specic location, and assign that driver to a new ride, even
before the previous one is complete.
“We noticed a signicant decrease in cancellations after we began
using the ridesharing solution” Quitsch says. “We believe we are
better matching drivers and riders near each other in part due to
increased location accuracy.”
mytaxi has been using location data to help it match customers who
want to share rides rather than riding alone. “We now have much
more accurate routing and location information, which helps our
algorithm better match ride-sharing passengers with each other and
with drivers,” Quitsch says.
Integrating navigation into the mytaxi app also helps attract and
retain drivers, Quitsch says, because the driving experience is much
improved. In addition, drivers who don’t know an area well can easily
nd the most efcient routes right within the app, which grows the
pool for potential drivers. “That has especially helped us in Ireland,
where there haven’t been enough drivers on the road,” he says.
The Google Maps Platform ridesharing solution can also be
customized for the specic needs of individual companies. It can
provide notications, workow details, and destination information
inside the navigation screen. (The nearby screenshot shows an
example.) mytaxi customized its Navigation screen in a number of
ways, including a custom sound toggle to turn of the voice over from
the nav sdk. And a button to show the selected route and route
alternatives. As well, we added the ETA next to the address to be
transparent towards the driver as we are to the passenger.
Summing up the benets mytaxi has experienced, Quitsch says,
“Reliability is the basis of our company, and with the Google Maps
Platform ridesharing solution we’ve improved reliability for both
customers and our drivers. We get more passengers to where they
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The Google Maps
Plaorm ridesharing
solution can also
be customized for
the specic needs
of individual
companies.
want to go quickly and safely, and our drivers have a better
experience because they pick up passengers on time and get them
to their destinations faster. Having an app that includes full
navigation puts us on the right path to gain the trust of our drivers
and customers.”
mytaxi Chief Product Ofcer Johannes Mewes adds, “Our aim in
integrating Google Maps is to improve the user experience and to
make using mytaxi even more service-oriented and more intuitive for
our drivers. The passengers benet from the update as well. Trafc
jams and hold-ups can specically be avoided at the beginning of
the trip, without the driver rst having to waste time searching for
alternative routes in separate systems. With the integration of
Google Maps mytaxi underlines again its role as a market leader,
driver of innovation and rst mover."
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