Design A Ride Sharing App

This is the featured image for the best ride sharing apps and taxi apps for android

Editor's tip: This list is primarily for folks in the United States. Those from other countries may not find what they're looking for.

Hailing a ride is in its Renaissance phase right now. Companies like Lyft and Uber made taxis cool again and tons of new companies are getting into the industry. There are a ton of them out there. They all basically promise the same thing. You use the app to hail a ride, it shows up, takes you where you need to go, and then you pay them money. However, most services are region-specific or have some issues that still need to be worked out. Here are the best taxi apps for Android

InDriver is one of the larger taxi apps on Android. It supports over 500 cities across 34 countries, including the US as of 2018. It works like most ride-sharing apps. You can hail a ride, a driver comes, you go where you need, pay the driver, and leave a review. You can choose your driver from a list of drivers that accept your ride requests and sort by things like completed rides. It works pretty well for customers, but drivers do have a small problem with obtaining ratings early on.

Joe Hindy / Android Authority

Lyft

Price: Free / Ride costs vary

Lyft is one of the most popular ride-sharing apps out there. Most people know how this app works. You find a ride, take it, and pay the driver. Lyft shows you the price of the ride up front so you know in advance. Additionally, you can split the cost with friends directly in the app if needed. Lyft also boasts a driver ranking system, liability insurance for its passengers, It's not perfect by any stretch and people complain a lot about cancellation fees and surge charges where rides are more expensive than normal due to demand. The app works pretty well, though, and the service is usually reliable.

Joe Hindy / Android Authority

Uber

Price: Free / Ride costs vary

Uber is arguably the biggest name in ride sharing. They operate all around the world and get in trouble all of the time for their strategies. The actual service works like most other services, though. You hitch a ride, go places, and pay for it when you're done. The app supports payments from PayPal and Android Pay. You can also review drivers, schedule pickups for the near future, and there are a few ride options as well. It has the same complaints as others, including pricing, various charges, and stuff like that. However, people seem to trust Uber a lot more than smaller companies.

Joe Hindy / Android Authority

Via

Price: Free / Ride costs vary

Via is the smallest taxi app on the list at the time of this writing. It does work in the US, but it is limited to a few major US cities. It works like most of the others. You book a ride, get your ride, and pay for your ride. It also pools riders into the same car if they are going the same route. Thus, the app tries to keep rates down by using the extra seats in a car. It may not be the best approach in a pandemic world right now, but it has some promise. Most the complaints revolve around the glitchy app and funky tip system.

Joe Hindy / Android Authority

Local taxi apps

Price: Free / Ride costs vary

A lot of smaller companies service specific regions or areas. There are advantages to using services like these. The companies are local, for starters, as are all of their employees and their attention. They are a little difficult to find, though, and there are a lot of them. Juno seems like it's pretty decent for New York. Via works in NYC, Washington D.C., and Chicago. Bay State Commute works only in Massachusetts. These little startups are all over the place and they are occasionally difficult to find. However, they don't seem to be half bad. Of course, the costs vary from state to state and service to service. We linked an app called Bellhop to the button below. It lets you browse ride sharing and taxi services in your area so you can compare and use the one you want.