If you have considered taking up ridesharing as an occupation, then you had better be prepared. Apart from the physical requirements needed to assure a smooth driving experience, there are some applications aimed at making your driving and decision-making process easier. We provide a short list of a few of the important apps that you should consider before embarking on this interesting career.
Our position on apps is that they offer three types of advantage; driving, comfort, and financial.
We have split the apps into groups, based on their functions:
Driving Apps
Navigational
- Google Maps, This lovely app (what do you expect from Google) offers all kind of features, traffic, attractions, and utilities in the vicinity, alternative routes and an intelligent search to assist in reaching places you don’t have a name.
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Waze, This traffic system proves itself daily, offering up to date real-time traffic options and estimating times of arrival as well as showing you who else is driving around you.Waze is available globally, so getting accustomed to it will also help you when you travel for personal reasons.
Mileage Tracking
- Triplog 2.0, is a focused app that estimates your gas usage and also best gas prices. What makes this app different from the rest is its tracking versatility, you choose when to start tracking your trips. Triplog 2.0 is free, however, for additional features such as cloud backup and AutoStart, you will pay a nominal price.
- MileIQ costs $6 per month, free version allows for only for 40 rides. This app is basic but very useful, with two categories; personal (wipe left) and professional (swipe right) including a secure cloud sync.
- Hurdle offers expense allocation to rides. It includes a few interesting functions, like graph displays that show you net earnings and expenses per trip. Hurdler connects to the cars Bluetooth, auto-starting when the Bluetooth connects.
- Everlance free version limits to 30 trips and then it will cost you either $7.99 a month or $59.99 yearly. With its easy GUI, It includes expense tracking.
- Milecatcher, is an easy app that tracks and categorizes tax-deductible mileage automatically and generates expenditure reports. It runs in the background and is not a resource hog. This app has an intelligent classification system; it automatically classifies trips based on your driving history. It costs $3.99 a month or $48 per annum.
Gas
- GasBuddy will show you the best gas prices along your route, but calculate correctly; you don’t want to run out of gas trying to get t saving of 50 cents!
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Google Maps/Waze these apps also show where local gas stations are but don’t compare prices.
Weather
- Accuweather a quick and easy app to use, not ad heavy. It also gives driving weather conditions too.
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Weather Channel is another easy to use the app, claims to be the most downloaded app of all weather apps.
Roadside Assistance
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Honk, for only $50 you can assure you have roadside assistance 24/7 anywhere in the USA. This amazing app connects you to immediate help.
Aiport Schedules
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Flightstats, since many a time airport runs, are the most lucrative trips to take. It’s advisable to have an updated flight schedule at your fingertips This way you can find out if the flight you meet is delayed or if a flight you have to reach is on time.
Financial Apps
Accounting & Tracking
- Quickbooks Self-Employed App. Provides a full bookkeeping system with a mileage calculator, so it is very easy to link resources and costs to the mileage driven every trip. This app itemizes and automates all recurring expenses and only needs once a week mile categorization. It syncs with banks, fully automates bookkeeping and compares business miles to actual driving miles.
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Stride Drive is a free app that gives you full expense tracking per mileage. It also operates in the background, recording every trip. As it is an expense allocation app, you can include resources and costs for every trip. Stride is an easy app, memory light.
Billing
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Square This app is for credit card paying customers You can accept all credit card payments on your phone, which makes billing much more manageable. The only charge is a 3% fee taken by square.
Advertising
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Vugo is a lovely app that generates up to $3 an hour from showing passengers advertising during their trip. So if you already have an in-car video system, you can connect Vugo and display ads as well as entertainment.
Passenger Waiting Time
- Rideshare Timer app is very useful for counting the minutes you wait for a later fare. It shows you a countdown timer on the screen so you can know when the time is up. Then it’s up to you, to use your discretion whether to wait longer (weather reasons? Airport pickup?) or not. (Update: There’s no need for timer anymore as Uber and Lyft has time within their respective apps.)
Comfort Apps
Entertainment
- Spotify; what a fantastic app to use when your passengers are in a meditative trance. You can fill in the missing sound with beautiful music.
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Youtube; if the music isn’t enough, and if you have a video system in place, then youtube will offer many exciting entertainment options.
There are many more apps appearing daily; we advise the drivers to constantly update their knowledge base by reading up on the latest gadgets and apps available. While driving can be lucrative, as in any business, it can be more or less profitable, more or less comfortable and in any business, you want to enjoy what you are doing.
Another important issue to remember is that driving is a profession, not just steering the car, but offering a full driving experience. The more you offer, the more likely you will be asked for more opportunities. While you might do not want to make it a major profession, it will add to your overall social popularity.