Submission Date
February 2, 2022
Project Links
Project Description
Ride - A Decentralized Ride-Hailing Platform.
The goal of Ride is to bring low-cost and transparent ride-hailing fares to the masses. Benefiting both drivers and passengers alike. Additionally, Ride has a driver reputation system that guarantees the driver’s experience in terms of number of successful trips they have made and the total distance travelled, which brings an extra level of security to the passengers. To bring all these together, Ride’s contract has a unique passenger-driver interaction module that allows them to communicate securely without the need for an intermediary.
Why do we need a low-cost and transparent ride-hailing platform?
The global pandemic has forced most people to work from home remotely, and for many, it looks like it is here to stay. However, there are times when, for any reason, need to use a car to get to a location, but not everyone can afford to get one, especially for the lower-income class. Besides that, there are many cases where it would be more convenient to just call a ride-hailing service.
Current ride-hailing services such as Uber take a large percentage of fees per trip fare of their drivers and are not transparent about it. This causes trip fares to increase and for most, it is a form of luxury transportation service. Not only do the drivers earn less, but it discourages potential passengers from using it.
Ride solves this by allowing the driver to have the majority of the fees, and only take a small maintenance fee to sustain the platform. This allows Ride to keep the fare prices low, benefiting both drivers and passengers. However, how do we make sure it stays this way? This is why Ride is developed as a blockchain-based application, to ensure its transparency.
Ride would have a governance token such that any cost-per-trip rates within the Ride contract have to be proposed and voted on by the DAO members. This ensures that all trip fares are fair and up-to-date to be a suitable rate for the economic climate.
Furthermore, it is common for the percentage cut in fare that existing ride-hailing companies take to vary. This variation in cut is not transparent which causes more uncertainty for the drivers. Ride’s transparency also solves this as the fare breakdown can be viewed on-chain.
One common concern when using Ride is how do we determine the price if the token’s price keeps fluctuating? Ride solves this by having a contract module that converts the token price to local currency price in real time, and calculates its fare based on the local currency amount, then charges that equivalent amount in the token to the passenger.
Why do we need a driver reputation system?
Safety is still a concern during a trip. To increase safety levels and provide a more peace-of-mind state to the passengers, Ride provides a driver reputation system where it records every trip that happens, its metres travelled, whether the trip was successful or not, and passenger rating. These factors contribute to a unique formula that calculates a score. The higher the score, the higher the driver’s badge rank. In Ride, the higher a driver’s badge rank, the more reputable they are in terms of those factors. The more successful trips a driver makes, the higher the badge rank they would earn.
Passengers can then choose between a range of badge rank that would allow them to have a peace-of-mind while travelling. If a passenger chooses a badge rank of 2, any drivers with rank 2 or higher may accept the trip request. Drivers may also choose to charge a higher cost-per-metre rate (determined by the DAO), but this is not necessary if they think there would be no passenger volume at a higher badge rank (cost more).
Keep in mind that although cost-per-metre may increase with badge, the highest would still be low relative to existing trip fares from private companies.
Other innovations:
Like all ride-hailing platforms, it would only be useful if it were a mobile application, and this is exactly how we build Ride. Ride is a mobile-first DApp that has plans to bring utility blockchain functionality to the phone. Besides wallets, most existing DApps are web-based due to the difficulty in integrating smart contract to wallet interaction. With Ride, we have managed to resolve this and bring a smooth experience to users who use our DApp.
From our knowledge, Ride is one of the first utility DApp to venture out of the finance or art/gaming/nft space. We are excited to bring Ride to market and we hope the community would join us for this ride.
Amount requested
46,000 USD
Milestones
Milestone #1 | Wallet Interface
Ride requires a built-in wallet to enhance user experience with using the DApp. This wallet would be secure with current industry standards while being able to communicate with the Ride contract functions seemlessly.
Budget: 10,000 USD
Milestone #2 | Admin Interface
An admin interface is required to approve applicants wanting to become drivers. This is necessary as part of passenger’s safety. This is currently the only functionality of an admin as other functionality would be governed by a DAO.
Budget: 2,000 USD
Milestone #3 | Passenger Interface
The interface required for passengers to interact with drivers through the smart contract functions. Besides that, the Maps API and user interface for the passenger to make a trip request. Also, functionality/UI to display the current state of the user, such as estimated time of arrival, driver’s current location, etc.
Budget: 8,000 USD
Milestone #4 | Driver Interface
The interface required for drivers to interact with passengers through the smart contract functions. Besides that, the Maps API and user interface for the driver to find passengers and accept a trip request. Also, functionality/UI to display the current state of the user, such as passenger’s location, etc.
Budget: 8,000 USD
Milestone #5 | Firebase Backend
To help with any non on-chain essential information. These data would be stored via firebase to help with user experience of the DApp.
Budget: 5,000 USD
Milestone #6 | Testing
Tests would cover all smart contract unit and integration tests, and tests for the mobile DApp.
Budget: 3,000 USD
Milestone #7 | Audit
Review of smart contract logic and audit (every effort would be made to lower the cost of audit, but the budget may change depending on the future audit rates).
Budget: 10,000 USD
Estimated time of delivery: 6 months from budget approval