Section 1: Administrative Information

Application Name: Taxi Tales

AppID: P813

Did that taxi driver help you catch your flight, or did his driving make you double-check your seat belt? Rate and review individual Chicago cab drivers to share your experiences and find the best cabs!

Section 2: Problem That Is Solved

Taxi Tales improves your Chicago taxi-cab experience by allowing you to rate and review your cab drivers.  With the recent surge of ride-sharing apps such as Uber and Lyft, there are now many ways for you to get to that great restaurant across town. Sometimes, though, it’s just faster and cheaper to hail down a cab; the ride-sharing apps may be charging premium rush hour fares or might not have any available drivers close by. But as you’re heading out the door, you might remember that one cab driver who gave you a hard time when you tried to pay by credit, or the other who was constantly talking on his hands-on cell phone. You cringe at the thought of having to deal with these hassles again, and you end up requesting an Uber instead. The ride-sharing industry currently provides a better user experience because it differentiates its drivers through passenger feedback. Taxi Tales is here to ensure the same high quality experience with the Chicago taxi driver network.

Passenger feedback leads to improved user experiences because it distinguishes good drivers from bad drivers, rewarding those who do well and incentivizing others to improve. This makes you more confident that you will receive good service. Have you ever had a bad experience with a ride-sharing driver? Most drivers offer snacks, beverages and either a quiet ride or good conversation depending on your mood.  For the good driver, you leave a good review and tip as well as continuing to use the app. For the bad driver, you leave a bad review and tip, but you still continue to use the app because you have confidence in the quality of the driver network. Your feedback has consequences-- Uber drivers who have a score below 4.5 get kicked off of Uber’s network—so you know that the drivers who pick you up are reliable.

You’ve probably had a variety of taxi experiences ranging from the great cab driver who rushed you to the airport, to another driver who took the scenic detour while aggressively making left turns and narrowly avoiding accidents at every intersection. What can you do when you get a bad driver? Call the 311 number to “file a complaint” and hope that something happens? Your feedback does not have immediate consequences, and there is no easy way for you to let others know about your experience. By not having an effective way to distinguish drivers, the quality of the entire taxi driver network is compromised by a few bad drivers.

Taxi Tales uses the City of Chicago database of public chauffeurs to provide a forum for reviewing all taxi drivers in the Chicago area. Upon stepping into a cab, look at the driver’s taxi license information—Chicago cab drivers are required to display this—and type in the driver’s six-digit license number. The app will then show basic information about that driver. You can quickly see previous reviews made by other passengers as well as easily add your own. By empowering you to leave your feedback, Taxi Tales ultimately improves the quality of all cab rides throughout the city. With Taxi Tales, next time you head out the door, don’t hesitate to hail down that passing cab.

Section 3: Intended Audience

The intended audience is Chicago taxi passengers. The collected data will be the reviews that they leave for the drivers, and these are stored in an online database so that others can access them through the app.

Section 4: Unique Features of the App

The app has a Chicago-inspired user interface and is designed to be simple and intuitive with the intent for the user to easily see and write reviews upon entering a cab. Currently the app has no login, GPS or other location technology, and the result is an app that allows the user to transition between entering the driver’s six-digit license number, viewing reviews, and submitting a review as quickly as possible: important for the passenger on the go.

One potential feature in the future would be to integrate iBeacons and other proximity and location technology. Using iBeacons, drivers can broadcast a unique identifier so that when the cab is approaching and the user enters the cab’s beacon region, the profile of the driver will automatically pull up and the user can see the driver’s reviews before entering the cab.