How To Develop A Trucking App Like Uber

Uber has been a revelation since its inception. The dimension of the taxi business has been completely revolutionized by the pioneers of Uber. The introduction of Uber made it clear that the on-demand business model is the real deal and the success that it enjoyed buoyed various entrepreneurs to invest without holding back in on-demand business models of different industries.

Uber for trucks is a similar version of Uber that was created for taxi booking and takes up the onus to manage the truck transportation business. Uber for trucks has been in high demand in recent times and more and more truck business owners are looking to cash in on the golden opportunity that is presented in front of them. Through this piece of information, you will be guided thoroughly in creating an attractive truck app. so, let us get straight into it.

Reasons For Developing Your Own Trucking App

Payment Tracking

It’s useful for both — drivers and transporters. The initial ones can look through their payment status and past transactions. Concerning the transporters, they have a secure method to pay for transportation. Moreover, Payment happens only after the shipment is delivered.

Fuel cost reduction

The last expense of shipments depends upon the fuel cost. A huge load of transportation associations is unprofitable as trucks drive back empty, Modernized delivery plans enable effective truck management keeping a fleet full for each situation. Drivers can pick stacks as shown by their region and conceivable goal.

Customer Experience

Shipping game plans give full straightforwardness. With their help, you can see the final price of the shipment and seek after the trucks’ course. It extends their trust and loyalty.

Market Statistics of Transport & Trucking Business

The United States cargo transportation is commonly worth around $1 trillion as indicated by the Plunkett Research’s report.Yet, the shipping business makes approx 70% of that figure.
Trucking is a monster business and it gets a handle on the long haul, present moment, full-truckload, less truckload, and by means of feet size.

• Examining the amounts of a shipping business, according to American Trucking Associations, “The market was worth approx $726 billion of each 2015, and $676 billion out of 2016.” Considering these numbers, we can anticipate that there are colossal open doors in the shipping industry.
• As demonstrated by the Transparency Market Research report, “The overall market for transportation the board framework TMS was regarded at US$ 9,600.8 million of each 2016.
• This will rise at a solid CAGR of a pace of 13.6% from 2017 to 2025. It is moreover foreseen that it will arrive at US$ 30,044.1 million until 2025.”
• There are different sorts of shipments, similar to distribute and messenger administration, not exactly truckload, and full or incomplete truckload administrations.
• According to a Google Trends report, there is an evaluation among Uber and long stretch shipping for the shipping industry.

Steps to Develop an Uber kind app for Trucking

It is a no-brainer that to create an Uber-like app for trucks you need to hire a well-established app development company. This app development company needs to have the right mix of talent and experience to deliver just the kind of app you are looking for. As far as other important things required to create the app are concerned, we will discuss that in the following section.

#1. Deciding Upon the Type of Application You are Looking to Develop

Two scenarios can be drawn from this,

• You are the owner of a logistics business with a fleet of trucks. Now you are looking to streamline operations and scale up the business with the assistance of a solution.
• You are looking to create a marketplace that will act as a link between shippers and carriers.
• Uber Freight is very similar to Uber of trucks and is like a marketplace for shippers and carriers to connect.

#2. Finding a Renowned Mobile Development Company

Success or failure of your application depends on this very step. An app development company that you will be hiring should have the necessary experience in creating the type of app you are looking for. Their expertise needs to lie in creating an app that is easily navigable, user-friendly, and fully-featured.

You need to put in the hard yards by researching the company that fits your bill. Go through the previous client testimonials and portfolios to get a hold of the work they have in the past and determine their competency.

#3. Idea Authentication

After hiring a reliable and top-notch app development company, your focus should shift to validating your business idea. To perform this important task you have to dig your heels deep by conducting deep market research. The purpose of this research is to find out whether your business idea is good enough to sustain in this competitive market.

This step is also helpful in finding out whether you can make the app even better with some minor technical tweaks in the system. As your capital and efforts are invested in the app, this step makes sure that they don’t go down the drain.

#4. Deciding Upon the Features You Want to Incorporate into an MVP

MVP denotes Minimum Viable Product and is a compressed version of the app that includes paramount features. It is up to you whether you want to include all the must-have features in your app or not. After deciding upon that, the next step for you is to launch the MVP to receive both negative and positive feedback from the audience. Acting on this feedback will help you improve upon the areas of the app that are calling for attention.

Paramount features for an Uber Trucking app

In general, Uber for trucks consists of three basic applications.

Driver’s App

The prime motive of the driver’s application is to help out carriers in filling up the truck with cargo and to assist smooth transportation to the desired destination. Upcoming features need to be included in a driver’s app at any cost.

1. Registration

You can provide both types of registrations be it traditional email registration or registration through social media accounts. There is an option for you to provide credentials to the carrier after he has been approved by you to make deliveries.

2. Shipment details

Through this feature, the carriers can have a look at all the necessary information before they agree to deliver the shipment. These features are weight, type of shipment, dimensions, date, time of delivery and pick-up, pick up & drop-off location.

3. Filtering of Shipments

The arrangement of the shipments is quite necessary and all their details must be kept sorted. Filters based on cargo, pick-up & destination location, date are available through the feature.

4. Cancellation Request

As you can judge by the name, this feature helps out the carriers in canceling out shipments in case of an accident or emergency.

5. Route Optimization & Shipment Tracking

This feature assists the drivers in tracking the routes in real-time. The purpose of this feature is to help out drivers in adjusting routes according to accidents, traffic, or road repairs. This stuff helps out in speeding up the overall process of delivery.

6. Delivery Proof

The carrier after delivering the shipment to the shipper needs to send proof of delivery to the authorities which he can do easily by uploading a photo or a document.

Shipper’s App

Shipper’s app is created to make the task of finding trucks in the nearby area a tad easier for the shippers. To create a shipper’s app that is both attractive and efficient, you need to include the following features.

1. Registration

The algorithm involved in this feature is pretty similar to that of Driver’s App. You can choose to offer registration both via traditional registration or social media accounts. These registration processes are provided keeping both the individuals and businesses in mind.

2. Listing of Vehicles

This feature provides you with a list of vehicles that are available for shipment in your area. Necessary details of these vehicles are also made available through this feature.

3. Superfast Booking

Shippers need to be provided leeway in terms of bookings made. This is important is because shippers like to book their shipments in advance. The benefit of this feature is that it allows instant as well as scheduled bookings.

4. Push Notifications

This feature is of great significance when it comes to reminding the shippers about the date and time of shipment delivery. Apart from this, it also informs the shippers about the delivery of the cargo.

5. Various Payment Options

Shippers are provided with various modes of payment in the form of e-wallet, cards, and cash to make the payments for the services.

6. Feedbacks

This feature allows the shippers to provide ratings to carriers based on the experience they had during the assignment. Ratings help out in determining the caliber of the carriers.

7. Real-time Vehicle Tracking

As you can find out by its name, this feature assists in real-time vehicle tracking of all vehicles that are carrying the shipment. Also includes ELD (electronic logging device) integration to automatically record driving time and Hours of Service (HOS).

You can also check Big Road ELD review.

Admin’s App

This app is designed particularly for the admins so that they can be aware of all the things under their wings such as shippers, trucks, carriers, cargo, and other things.

1. Dashboard

Dashboard performs the task of displaying all the important information regarding the vehicles, carriers, shippers, and orders.

2. Track Drivers

Tracking of drivers, their current location, estimated time of delivery, products contained in the shipment, and many more.

3. Bill Management

Bills of the shipment can be easily managed through the invoices generated within the application.

4. Alerts and Notifications

Through the assistance of this feature, the admin can send important notifications to the carriers in terms of alterations in location or routes.

Well-established Uber for trucking applications

Cargomatic

Cargomatic has its headquarters established in California and is popular for connecting shippers with truck drivers. It promotes planning out of deliveries within aggressive prices depending upon a lot of factors namely weight, size, and distance of the cargo. Customers have the leeway in selecting the driver depending upon his reputation, financial security, driver’s rating, and equipment.

Cargomatic consists of two apps:

• Driver App
• Shipper App

Driver app helps out drivers in applying for jobs, look through the road, checking upon the availability of the supplies, and sending out documents through emails.

Shipper App assists the shippers in viewing the shipment history, hand out feedbacks about the drivers, and calling the drivers through the app.

Convoy

Convoy originates from Seattle and is an online marketplace for both carriers and shippers. In Convoy, the mobile app is made available only to the drivers while the shippers have to operate this system through the website version of the platform.

Convoy has a policy that it does business with only those tracking companies that has DOT number and insurance and motor carrier authority. It offers a bundle of opportunities to the drivers in the form of suggestions to detention pay requests, keeping the trucks full, and many other things. This platform contains a special feature that frees the drivers from waiting outside the warehouse as it provides an accurate pick-up and drop-off location.

Uship

uShip is a famous online freight marketplace for shippers and carriers which includes all types of shipments. When a user wants to ship an item all he needs to do is post about it on the app. In the quest of hauling the shipment, transportation services will bid appropriately.

uShip is different in comparison to other platforms as it does business with all types of carriers without focusing too much on their specialization. This platform deals with large companies but also does not ignore the solo trucks. uShip contains a lot of attractive features such as an in-built payment system, price estimates, real-time notifications, and many other things.

Ways to monetize the Uber truck app

In this section, we will discuss the topmost methods that can help us generate some capital to run our app.

1. Advertisements

This type of monetization method is the most common of all. Everyone is aware of the paid advertisements scheme in which companies pay you to run their advertisements to promote their brand. This method is effective but too much ad playing will affect the mood of the customers which overall will affect the user experience.

2. Commissions

Commissions are another effective way of monetizing your app in which you charge a commission for money transfers. Integrating a payment gateway in your app is a must to accomplish this method. Being aware of your competitor’s commissions is a great way of staying ahead in the competition.

3. Payment Solution

To make this method a hit you should make sure that it follows all the necessary security instructions which give a sense of trust to the customers making payment from within the app. One of the most effective ways of gaining your user’s trust is to integrate solutions that provide high reliability such as PayPal, Stripe, and other Merchant Accounts.

4. Paid Features

Providing features in return for some capital can also help you out in your pursuit of monetizing your app. These paid features that come in the form of 24*7 Chat support, push notifications, multiple language support can be provided to both drivers and shippers.

Also Read: How to Develop An E-Wallet Mobile App?

Required Tech Stack for Building a Trucking App Like Uber

Selecting the appropriate tech stack is very important to build a high-performing app. So, make sure to choose a mobile app development company that works with the following tools and frameworks:

• Mobile Platform: Android, IOS
• Map & Navigation:Google Maps,GPS
• Web back-end: Node.js, JavaScript, .Net, and more
• Payment gateway: Stripe, PayPal, Braintree, e-Wallets
• Real-time app analytics: BigData, Spark, Apache Flink,
• Push notifications: Push.io, Twilio
• Database: MongoDB, Cassandra
• Cloud environment: AWS
• Voice, SMS, phone verification: Twilio, Nexmo

Cost of Developing an Uber for Trucks Application

The development cost of an app depends upon several factors. These factors are the complexity of the app to be developed, number of hours, technology stack, number of actors, number of platforms, and hourly rates.

An app like this takes around 4 to 6 months to get developed completely. Most app development companies charge on an hourly basis. And this hourly cost immensely varies with the location of the company. For instance, software developers in the USA charge around $110 to $170 per hour. Similarly, in Europe, this hourly cost varies between $60 and $175. But in Asian countries, especially India, you can easily find skilled and highly qualified MobileApp developers charging as less as $50 to $90 per hour.

• $25,200 for Android development
• $26,750 for IoS development
• $36,150 for Web development

Also Read: How to DevelopTaxi Booking Mobile App 

Wrapping Up

An Uber for trucks application is an all in one application for your trucking business. It can help you manage your fleet, shippers, carriers without any fuss. Similarly, it helps you out in connecting the carriers and shippers.

Developing an Uber for trucks app depends upon a lot of factors and in this article, we have tried our best to make you aware of all those factors so that you can develop an incredible Uber for trucks application.