About this app
Rikscha is a new approach of a "hail-a-ride" service where the trip fare is, different from established services like Uber or Lyft, not arbitrarily set by a "middle man" but by passenger and participating drivers via a bidding process. With Rikscha everybody can be a driver or a passenger. Ride fares are are negotiated between drivers and riders in a quick visual message interchange and the middlemen or market makers are cut out for an efficient demand-driven market place.
Download the single-image application and register either as a passenger or a driver, or both. Register as a passenger and use the app as a logged-in rider. Time and desire to make extra income? Register and login as a full or part-time driver. Need a ride? Passenger posts trip pick-up and destination locations, and optionally acceptable driver delay to pick-up and an initial fare bid, all with a few screen clicks. This finds logged-in, available and close-range Rikscha drivers with who to negotiate a trip fare during a limited bidding time window via a rapid visual message interchange. When passenger and a bidding driver reach an agreement, other drivers are waved off and passenger will be given the negotiated ride by committed driver. After agreeing on a deal, passenger and driver see updated position and delay to pick-up of driver, and after pick-up traffic-based delay estimates to trip destination, thereby assuring total control and transparency during every phase of the ride. Arriving at destination, financial transactions are executed - passenger's credit card is charged and driver's PayPal account is credited with driver's share after deduction of PayPal fees. Google Wallet will soon be another option. MobileTransportation Solutions LLC retains no profit share! Trips can also be paid in cash, if driver agrees. At trip's completion, driver and passenger receive an email with confirmation of financial transactions and all ride details, they also rate each other's performance. All ride data are permanently recorded in server database.
Registering is accomplished on phone by providing name, working cellphone number, and optionally a credit card. Drivers need an active PayPal account connected to email address, furthermore extra personal data is collected - driver license#, DOB, picture, mailing address and vehicle insurance details. A complete set of this data is required to register successfully, it can be updated at any time after registration and is subject to being verified.
The bidding process is quick and efficient: passenger and drivers easily survey different trip bids which reach them as phone notifications. Passenger usually entertains bids from different drivers, while driver may simultaneously bid on different trips of several passengers. Passenger criteria for bid acceptance are trip fare and delay to pick-up, while drivers will likewise judge attractiveness of trip bid based on distance/delay to pick-up, trip fare and/or resulting $s earned per hour or mile, information which is clearly displayed. This is a dynamic market scenario: the number of available drivers at a location at a given time may shift the market pressure either in passenger's or driver's favor, and as such Rikscha implements are pure demand-driven market place free of external interference or control.
With a growing passenger "past-trip portfolio", subsequent trips to destinations visited in the past are requested even more simply by tapping in the history screen a past trip to same destination, even if trip origin was different as it cab be easily be modified. Past trip parameters like fare, driver and distance/delay are displayed for reference. Trips bids are for immediate pick-up but can be scheduled in the future.
Personal preferences like map type, metric or standard distance display, bidding window length and others more can be set in a setting screen.
FAQ page answers many more questions.
Happy Bidding!
App Permissions
Allows an application to read the user's calendar data.
Allows an application to write the user's calendar data.
Allows an application to change the Z-order of tasks.
Allows an application to read or write the system settings.
Allows an application to write to external storage.
Allows an application to read from external storage.
Allows applications to open network sockets.
Allows applications to access information about networks.
Allows applications to change network connectivity state.
Allows an application to receive the ACTION_BOOT_COMPLETED that is broadcast after the system finishes booting.
Allows access to the vibrator.
Allows an application to initiate a phone call without going through the Dialer user interface for the user to confirm the call.
Allows using PowerManager WakeLocks to keep processor from sleeping or screen from dimming.
Allows access to the list of accounts in the Accounts Service.
Allows an app to access approximate location.
Allows an app to access precise location.
Allows applications to access information about Wi-Fi networks.
Allows an application to send SMS messages.
Allows read only access to phone state, including the phone number of the device, current cellular network information, the status of any ongoing calls, and a list of any PhoneAccounts registered on the device.
