Table of Contents
Along the history of learning taxi mobility business ideas, we have come across many methods and procedures to achieve a decent outcome. Some may be so elaborate, some maybe so short that it could be a simple conversation. What one should keep in mind is that, when it comes to doing business, keeping a process helps, but at the same time, it should be open to refinement & integration on a constant basis.
Among the huge surge of business ideas, operating and developing a taxi mobility service is considered as a never-ending fortune anywhere in the near or distant future. Like any business, having a well-cooked plan and a high functioning crew is an important aspect if you want to start a business in taxi mobility services.
For the ease of understanding, let us consider this topic in four aspects.
Research
Implementation
Development
Innovation
Even though four of these aspects have different working levels, the basic underlying principle is that you must be on the look-out. We will also have a look at some of the prominent companies that have created an impact on the field of taxi mobility services.
Traditionally, whenever you use a taxi mobility service, the service had to be paid for in cash at the end of each journey but that has been changed in recent years to third-party applications like Paytm, Google Pay, swipe machines, credit cards and whatnot. The influence of digitalization brought many useful and time-saving concepts to the industry like online payments, booking software, route-planner etc.
People nowadays do not have to carry cash in their hands, if they want to avail a service anymore. Before starting a taxi business, it is important to understand what is actually available for you to use and how should you create an impact on the customer’s mind. You can always rely on proven methods like providing cashback, gift vouchers offers etc. Other than that, the focus should be on what you can provide that your competitor hasn’t thought about.
The geography of the business area is something you should use to tweak your business. In a really crowded city, people often get struck in traffic because of the car’s inability to move through. Such areas naturally have a scope for two-wheeler taxi mobility services or other alternatives.
Likewise, an industrial area will always require taxi booking app development services more than a village or a normal city. You should always rely on the demographics of an area and match your preferences to the requirement of the taxi mobility service and then you will be able to see the pattern you have to follow.
Let’s have a fact check: You will have to face competition along your journey of becoming a successful taxi mobility business owner. The strategy lies in knowing about your competition and being better than the competitors. This will be a long process and possibly the hardest because no business will reveal their strategy.
The best chance you have is inquiring about the competitors and find out how they are creating their own unique impact on the customers. Some will talk about their taxi mobility marketing strategies, while others will be impressed with the customer experience they receive. It could be the ease of access for someone and for some, offers they receive. The bottom line is that you have to bring something new and efficient to the market.
The client base is the top priority of a taxi mobility business. Standards of maintaining the customer relationship is another way of increasing business level. Getting to know the needs of customers, and providing them with the maximum you can offer always results in mouth publicity. Along with the procedure, you will have to meet a variety of customers with a variety of needs and a variety of taxi mobility services.
Some just want you to help them reach from A to B but some could also a more complex criteria, like in the case of a movers’ truck. There, maybe you’d also have to avail a helping crew to unload the stuff and maybe take it inside the place. And it is extremely important to know about the customer psyche too, which will help you in the marketing phase.
While researching through the industry market, you would come across at least some possible downsides of the industry. It may be the non-feasible markets on areas, situations like a pandemic, competitive markets etc. This would give you an idea about the possible challenges you may need to face and develop your project in a way to tackle the threats coming at you.
Another extremely important part of the business would be the documentations and formalities to be completed. Almost 90% of the problems arise with incomplete or wrongly done documentations. Moreover, your idea of taxi mobility business, firm’s name, and the likes of intellectual properties need to be protected with trademarks, copyrights, and patents.
So, it is important you must have an idea about the types of documentation and tax procedures your niche requires. A good insurance policy would also benefit you, in case of an unforeseen event.
Taxi mobility legal formalities for a business vary according to the business and resources used. For a taxi business, you’d normally require vehicle permits, a vehicle for taxi mobility service permits, security badges, proof of insurance, driver’s forms, business permits, licenses etc. Further formalities include registering, safety checks, document formations etc. More details about such formalities could be accessed from the transport offices of your area or specialised agents.
During the research phase, you will spend most of your time looking at the current industry taxi mobility trends, location specifics, possible competitors, the possibilities, basic customer categories, legal frameworks, and possible challenges you could face. While in this phase, you could explore different areas accessible and choose your niche according to the options available.
It would also give enough information about the types of taxi mobility businesses working co-dependent on a taxi mobility service. For e.g: in the hotel industry, where more than 80% of the customers are foreign (as in, not from the locality), rental taxi mobility service in partnership with a hotel could provide you with a high customer rate.
*Areas of concern*
The taxi mobility development service phase is where you begin to take action about your dream business. Here, you begin by rounding up your crew, delegating tasks, preparing cost analysis, and all other aspects of the business. This is where you collect resources for your business, cars, drivers, other staff, brush up marketing and everything that makes the foundation.
If you are not starting the taxi mobility business with your own money, you will have to find funding and other basic amenities of the business. This may include finding the locality you want to grow, storage spaces, and anything that could benefit your taxi mobility business plan. Also, since all this information is hard to keep in memory, having a well-written business plan is the key to make sure you keep in check with every idea you get.
Read More: How Taxi App Development Services will be the Preferred Option for Business Owners?
Obviously, this would have crossed your mind a long time ago. It is one of the most important aspects because business just isn’t possible without enough capital. Whether you start with your own money, or you are opting for a loan, it is extremely important that you see through the whole process and make sure your capital is ready before you make any single step in the development phase.
Taxi mobility resources for your business would depend entirely on the magnitude and style of business. Among the first few things would be basic amenities like cars, drivers, an office room and required staffs. Here, you could interview the staffs required according to the required standards and provide them with basic training for the job like how to keep account of your business and by doing so, it would run smoothly once it gets started. Hiring process could also be later in the process if that is how you want to do it.
Taxi mobility service cost analysis simply means analyzing how much you distribute from your budget to each and every part of the business. From resources maintenance to salaries and office appliances, everything should be considered so that it is scalable and well within your grasp. This will also help in cutting down unnecessary expenses and focus on more important aspects of the business.
Every successful taxi mobility business plan has a well-oiled plan. Having a well written business plan works as medicine for your business because it lets you see through the chaos and disturbances. Developing taxi mobility business plan is a strenuous job in itself because it requires that you see from all the angles of your business and create a path for your business, step by step. Your business plan should be discussed with the executive team and the terms of references should be in consensus.
A taxi mobility business plan should include the basic details of the company, its objectives, mission, services provided, market analysis, strategy and implementation methods, management methods, financial plan etc.
The selling point of any business is the quality, relevance and uniqueness of the taxi mobility service customer get. This should be customized to the niche, locality, and type of customer you are providing service to. You should also work upon how you can stand out from the crowd by refining the service practices and creating original ideas.
*Areas of Concern*
Like it says, the phase is about actually setting up the business. After completing enough researches and development, it is time to implement what you have yet achieved so far to the industry. This means the car(s) you have procured and the resources you have at hand should now start to work for you. Depending on the scale of the business, either you may be driving the taxi or performing a managerial role. You may keep day to day records of the business and implement any changes or updates required while on the schedule.
A view from this perspective is necessary to understand what your business needs. Even after researching tons of articles and interviewing specialists, unless you start to do the work, you cannot fully understand the system it requires to work efficiently. While on the field, you would come across different challenges that you never had thought of. Keeping a present mind, knowing, and understanding what is happening around you helps a lot because ultimately you must let loose and do what the situation demands of you.
*Areas of Concern*
Innovative ideas should be executed where you want unlimited growth. This phase could be integrated into any of the above mentioned, to create your unique trademark in the business. One method is by brainstorming with your crew, friends, relatives or anybody, who could make you a point about your business.
You could go for unique selling points for your business, including gifts and offers, make deals with a co-dependent industry for your customers and basically the goal should be providing something that others cannot or haven’t thought of.
Micromanaging the expenses is also a widely used concept where you allocate funds for every little activity from scratch. Even if too much micromanaging is considered a negative trait, you will get an idea about which area requires what kind of expense and find a way to optimize the use of money.
Commuter based businesses is considered one of the most reliable businesses where you focus on daily commuting customers who normally depends on buses, and other means of public transportation. It could be bound within a locality or a company. You could maybe approach a taxi mobility app development company if they are in need of transportation for their staff. In such a scenario, you’ll have to pick up the staffs from their places and drop them at the company within the pre-determined time.
Read More: Reshape Your Business With Taxi Booking App Clone Script Like Ola & Uber
Luxury taxi mobility service is one of the emerging and promising industries, where you’ll be giving customers premium vehicle support for an occasion or events. Business of such a service requires that you have in possession luxury vehicle(s) and driver(s) who are experienced in operating such vehicles. This would require a decent amount of capital for investing in meeting the needs of such a clientele.
People are living for the experience (when they are not working). If you can give them around in the city in a vintage taxi mobility vehicle, giving them nostalgia about the forgotten times, you could attract many people to do it often. The pre-requirements of this sector is the availability of quality vintage vehicles at your disposal. There are also expos and meetups of vintage car owners that happen regularly in most of the cities nowadays. You could showcase your vehicle and even gain publicity through such events.
A lot of people stop using their own vehicles for a lot of reasons. Maybe the growing traffic is a dilemma for inexperienced drivers, maybe their health conditions wouldn’t let them or they simply don’t have time. If you are such a person, or you know such people, these cars could be used to develop an income with a minimum investment. You could loan these cars out for a fixed period of time, say for e.g., 5 days, in return of a decent rent.
Even though it has been a dull couple of years for tourism, the industry is slowly making a comeback. If you have enough knowledge about some of the interesting places tourists would enjoy, you could seriously enjoy your work while touring. Combine it with a travel agency and you are all set for a full-fledge taxi mobility service.
There are other ways for providing taxi mobility services than transporting people. You could transport goods, specialized products, or other services to the place where it is required. An example would be lorries and trucks. Such a business obviously requires special provisions and documentations. If you are thinking big, it could be started as a part of a logistics business too.
Taxi mobility service examples include moving vans, courier & delivery services etc.
Speciality transportation is the moving goods or objects which cannot be transported with standard transport vehicles. Sometimes this may be potentially dangerous goods, heavy cargo and refrigerated products. These require customized storage conditions while in transit. This type of taxi mobility service would mostly require additional clearance certificates apart from usual paperwork.
Mobile maintenance units could be of any field of work. If you have a crew of highly qualified technicians or mechanics, you could go to the customer in need, thus creating an alternative to traditional in-shop services.
Now if you have thought about all of this and have a clear idea about what is it that you want, let us have a look at how the process would go:
*For a taxi mobility business plan, the primary objective is obviously to have the vehicle. If you are buying a new vehicle, make sure it is set up for the taxi purpose. The registration, badges etc. should be properly done according to the state laws.
Registration of the vehicle is conducted before the District or Regional Transport Office of the owner as per Section 39 of the Motor Vehicles Act 1988. It is mandatory that this should be done within 7 days from the date of purchase, although most of the dealers take care of this upon paying the fee for documentation. Also, note that the vehicle should be registered as a taxi.
*Next step is insuring the vehicle because we cannot ever predict a 100% risk-free driving from anybody. If your vehicle causes an accident, insurance will be helpful.
Pollution Under control certificate is one other document you should keep with the vehicle at all times. A new vehicle, however, does not require one, but it is required from the date after one year from the registration.
A new car intended for running as a Taxi need permits for transporting people/goods and that require forms submitted to Regional/State Transport Office.
*According to Motor Vehicles Act, Section 73 talks about an application with respect to Contract carriage of passengers i.e., the owner/driver is transporting the passengers under a contract in return for a fair charge. The application also takes note of the type, seating capacity, area where the taxi operates and other details.
*Fitness Certificate is another document required under Section 18 of the Motor Vehicles Act,1988. This states that the condition of the vehicle, is acknowledged and that it is fit to carry passengers. This should be fetched from an authorized testing station. During this, you’ll have your name and address painted or affixed on the taxi.
*If the taxi is to move from state to state, then All India Permit must be procured. This could be done by submitting necessary documents and applications before the Transport Authority. If you have procured an All-India Permit, it should be made visible on the number plate and you cannot carry passengers locally.
Pretty much these documents should be within your reach and tended to in case of an emergency checking. More than that, the driver should have a driver’s license, which proves the eligibility of the operator to drive the vehicle. Also note that the working schedule of a driver should be within the parameters of the Motor Transport Workers Act,1961. Section 13 of the Motor Transport Workers Act says that an adult motor transport worker shall not work for more than 8 hours per day or 48 hours in a week.
India’s taxi market stood at around $6.4 billion is 2016, with around 14% growth in 2017 and in 2022, it is assumed to cross $14.3 billion. With the changing lifestyles of travelers, higher cost of owning and managing vehicles and disposable income of consumers, the market is witnessing increasing growth as mobility services offer stress-free travel experiences with a lot of offers.
Uber is one of the most successful entities among the industry. They revolutionized the idea of getting a taxi and spread throughout the world like wildfire. Uber took upon the challenges with strategic planning and simplifying the experience of getting a taxi. They were able to get into the minds of customers and solve their problems while marketing them effectively. All of a sudden, there were people saying “Let’s get an Uber” instead of saying “Let’s get a taxi”. One of the reasons this happened is that they found sound high profile investors.
They integrated ridesharing and taxi mobility services on 2 wheelers, which benefitted the customers and the company, ultimately. They made partnerships with transit agencies and connected them to airports, subway, metro stations and rail lines. They made lite applications that worked seamlessly over lower network connectivity and cheaper phones. Moreover, they focused on cheaper advertising tactics and what started as a local platform became a worldwide phenomenon.
Read More: Why Uber-Like App Development Services Helpful to Your Taxi Booking Business?
Zomato started off as a small project of two people in 2008, from a need to finding easier menus online and making readymade food availability a wholesome experience. They acted on fulfilling a particular need and because the need was general in nature, it became a hit. They introduced premium features for exclusive customers, like Zomato Gold, which granted exciting offers and discounts. They prove that ultimately, it is the tone of what you want to say matters.
Read More: How much does it Cost to Make a Food Delivery App in India – App like Zomato, Swiggy
Rapido chose bike taxi as a niche and proved that their existence is worthwhile. A better feature of bikes than cars is that they can reach places faster than cars, sometimes where a car cannot reach and that it is cheaper. This gave opportunities for a lot of people to join because owning a decent bike is in any way cheaper than owning a decent car.
The fairs too, became marginally low compared to cars and became widely popular in crowded cities and among ordinary people. They executed a system to keep in check of the speed which negated the idea that bike rides are potentially more dangerous.
There are plenty more like this, to name some, Ola, Swiggy, Zoom cars, Droom, Dunzo, redBus, ixigo, Rajputana Tours & travels tec, which will occasionally come up in your research phase.
It is important to remember that there are no overnight successes. You will need to be dedicated, single-minded, and there is no substitute to hard work- Mukesh Ambani.
