A taxi journey can be more than just getting from A to B is the mindset of TheCar, premium chauffeur subscription company in Skåne. With safety and sustainability in focus, TheCar offers exceptional journey experience to their clients. As a newly established company on a scaling journey, TheCar wanted to create a mobile app for easier booking and customer management. Sigma Technology Systems team in Karlshamn and Kristianstad have taken on the challenge.
About the client
TheCar is a young company with big ambitions. With the current taxi park of 11 vehicles, they plan to expand to several Swedish cities and increase the car count to 400 cars serving their clients within a few years. TheCar’s vision is to provide a personal and exceptional chauffeur service. The clients have dedicated drivers and always get transported using premium, electric cars, contributing to more sustainable transportation. As the company is expanding rapidly, they needed to optimize the booking process, making it faster and more convenient.
TheCar was looking for a partner who would not only develop the application they want but share their mission and values and suggest improvements helping them achieve their goal – create the best chauffeur service booking application in the world.
Our involvement
Sigma Technology’s team headed by Anders Dahl started with the requirements investigation to start the app development. During this process, the team also identified steps/phases of the booking process that can be digitalized to ensure the best client experience and optimize booking management for TheCar.
The team chose a PWA (Progressive Web Application) to ensure that the launch will be smooth and fast. PWA allows downloading the applications on both mobile and web. The web solution is hosted on Microsoft Azure and Signal-R is used to keep certain pages updated in real-time. The solution has an advantage of a fast time-to-market and helps a client to maintain the same features on mobile and web.
The web application acts as several services
- Booking app for the end customer where they can book their trips, and review their details and history. Based on the users’ permission level, they can also add and manage their users on their subscription. The app has a sleeker and more modern look.
- Dispatch system for dispatcher staff to receive bookings and plan them on an available car and driver. The service has a more functional design where the way of working is the most important. This service is designed in such a manner to allow employees easily plan and coordinate the work on the back office without unnecessary functions.
- The drivers will get their own interface where they can see and manage the rides planned for them and directly report back to the staff shift if something unexpected occurs.
- The entire system is administered by the super administrator and allows adjusting prices, subscriptions, cars, schedules, etc.
The team has divided the development process into three stages. First, we have set up a development and test environment, secondly, we have revised booking management, and finally, we have developed a client application. The Agile way of working on the process with regular sprints allowed to work more transparently, and the client could follow the development process and comment on the features as soon as they come up.
“TheCar is very positive about slightly different and innovative features and really wants to be at the forefront when it comes to technology. TheCar is a bold company and using newest technologies is essential for them. We have many exciting updates to work on, such as the implementation of SMS and telephony services, integration with invoicing services, Mobile BankId and card payments,” shares Anders Dahl. “TheCar treats us as a cooperation partner and wants us to share knowledge and feedback on all their technical decisions and solutions. This has been a success factor in our cooperation and gives us a sense of ownership on the project that is vital for dedication, trust, and flexibility.”
When all customers start using our new system, TheCar will save several minutes of work for each booking!
The first version of the app is already on the market and clients have already registered in the system. Currently, Sigma Technology team conducts a UX analysis of the client’s workflow to find potential improvements and further areas for digitalization.
