March 21, 2016: Booking a bike-taxi in Gurgaon and Faridabad is lot more simple now. Gurgaon-based bike-taxi hailing app Baxi will roll out a new feature to help users book rides on the app even without being connected to the internet.
Baxi will make the feature available to its 30,000 users from next week. According to Baxi co-founder and CTO Manu Rana, customers having an Android smartphone without a data connection too can now use the new Baxi app. They can also use the app even when their net connection isn't working.
"This feature will help the company reach out to a larger number of customers as they will not have to rely on or spend money on data packs," he said.
You might be wondering how does the app work? Upon opening the app, the user has to press the ‘book’ button to get the nearest Baxi. If the app is offline, it uses an SMS to send the user's location and request to its server, find the closest Baxi and respond to the user with that information using SMS. The app reads the SMS and displays the driver's information and location to the user in the same way as it would do in an online booking.
"With this innovation, our app is now the first and only taxi-booking app in the world, let alone bike-taxi booking industry, that functions without a data pack or Internet connection," said Rana.
Baxi, which operates in Gurgaon and Faridabad, plans to extend the services to Noida and Ghaziabad later this month. The rides are offered at a base fare of Rs. 10, followed by Rs. 4 per km and Rs. 1 per minute of ride time charges.
Source : BS Motoring