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Project Overview

The most awesome way to catch taxis! Connect directly with the taxi driver who has the same app on his iPhone. See where he is on google maps and he can see you. Stay inside and watch as he drives over to pick you up. Free for drivers and free for passengers goCatch

Organisation

Taxi Apps

Team

goCatch comprises of co-founders Ned Moorfield and Andrew Campbell.

Project Brief

goCatch is a smartphone application that connects taxi drivers directly with passengers in real-time.

Passengers and drivers have the same application on their smart-phones and when a passenger wants a taxi, they tap the goCatch button and this broadcasts their location out to drivers via the phone's GPS. goCatch means no more waiting around in the rain, you can now stay inside and watch on your iPhone as your taxi approaches and catch taxis that are nearby but out of sight.

Drivers can see the location & destination details of passengers and are able to secure more jobs and more fares faster.

Project Innovation / Need

Current booking processes involve radio broadcast technology and centralised booking systems. Bookings are generally received by taxi networks via phone call and distributed to taxi drivers via electronic bookings terminals that lack real-time information on the passenger and driver’s location.

There are some mobile phone based taxi booking apps available, however their functionality is limited to sending bookings through to the existing centralised booking systems. Currently there are no comparable apps in the Australian market where the driver downloads and uses the app to broadcast out their location in real-time. There are examples of similar apps in overseas markets, in particular Germany and the U.S, which have been highly successful and attracted external investment. In particular the German based app, myTaxi, has secured 600 drivers and 20,000 passengers in Hamburg along with investment from Deutsche Telekom which is a great validation of the overall business model.

The central difference with Taxi Apps and other apps in the Australian market is that it allows drivers and passengers to connect directly and see one another’s location in real-time. The passenger has an application on their phone where they can see available drivers and the driver has an application on their phone that allows them to see passengers who want a fare.

User Experience

Users download the app and login as either a passenger or a driver.

Drivers keep the app open while they are on shift and can see where passengers are as they appear on the map

Passengers open the app and can see the location of nearby taxis on a map. then they can either tap on a taxi to catch it or hit the goCatch button to broadcast to all nearby taxis.

Project Marketing

Stage 1 – Driver Acquisition
The value proposition for taxi drivers to download the app is simple – Download the app, it is free and it will tell you when someone wants a taxi. If you don’t download it, you will miss out on fares.
Marketing activities include PR and guerrilla marketing activities at areas where taxis regularly frequent. LPG filling stations, airports and taxi ranks.

Stage 2 – Passenger Acquisition
Once there is a sufficient uptake of the app by drivers in each city, then the focus will switch to passenger uptake of the app. Marketing will be targeted at regular users of taxis including business people, and late night revelers.
The strategy here is to get as many people flagging and booking taxis through the app as possible. Marketing activities include PR, guerrilla marketing, publicity stunts, advertising and social media.
Taxi drivers will be the most cost effective and logical channel to facilitate app take up by passengers through word of mouth between drivers and passengers. The important dynamic here is that one driver will communicate with hundreds of passengers.