See the original article here, as reproduced below.
Site of the week: Ubi Cabs iPhone app
Fri, 11 May 2012 | By Charlotte McEleny
Owner: Ubi Cabs
Agency: In-house
| Content | 19/25 |
| Usability | 21/25 |
| Branding | 19/25 |
| Monetisation | 24/25 |
| Total | 83/100 |
Mobile is fast becoming the defacto channel for booking a cab but with several services on offer, it’s a tough market to crack. Ubi Cabs aims to help mini cab firms become more efficient by linking up empty cabs with consumers via a neat location-based app.
On mobile you can book cabs via established fleets such as Addison Lee, but they tend to be the pricier end of the market, or use apps such as Hailo to track down the nearest black cab in London. Ubi is aimed squarely at mini cabs and so is a much cheaper option.
On opening the app you are presented with a map that shows your current location and you are asked to set a location for pick-up. This then switches to the same map but with the task to set the drop of, which you can navigate by manually scrolling along the map or using the search function to set the address.
Once these details have been set you are shown a screen with a price, this then changes as you alter the details such as times, number of passengers, type of car and amount of luggage.
You can either pay by cash or credit card. At this point you are required to log in and can do so using Facebook. Up to this point the app had been working very quickly and although on 3g this did take a while.
Once a cab is booked the cab specifically assigned to you can then be tracked via the app on a map. You are sent details of the car, including the phone number, so you can keep up to date with its whereabouts.
This is a really handy app which works at a decent price point consumer. It also solves a problem for mini cab firms which, according to Ubi Cabs, have an average of 40% empty cabs at anyone time because the cabs are only booked for one-way journeys. Using the location-based functionality the cabs can pick up people to fill in those gaps as they head back to the part of the town or city that they usually cover.
This app is great, it really works and the social elements are a nice touch.
Other sites in this sector:
