Open your road to freedom with Fly Rentals, an e-scooter app
E-scooters are the most worthwhile and eco-friendly solution to the transportation
industry. Many investors and entrepreneurs have acknowledged the perks and started the
fleet. Fly Rentals is one such startup that recently launched an e-scooter rental
business in Michigan, USA.
How the concept was born - Project details
The underlying purpose of fly rentals is to offer users a convenient trip within a city of Kalamazoo, Michigan in a safe and affordable manner. To rent an e-scooter of the Fly Rentals, an e-scooter app is the only medium. Users can simply download the app, locate the nearest scooter, scan QR code to unlock it, get on safely, park the scooter properly after reaching the destination. The company does not need permits for sharing business and does not have any traffic liabilities.
Requirements Of Client
- The client had a standard ‘Ride and Pay model' business model, in which the user unlocks the scooter and pays for a ride.
- The client wanted to extend the business model with the ‘lease and pay model’ and ‘book and pay model’.
- The basic difference between the two is in book and pay model, users can rent a scooter for a few days while in the lease and pay model, the user can rent it for a few weeks or months, users can also renew it later.
Our course of action
Research and analysis
Creating an application for any business requires you to lean into the market, understand the user base and their requirements to deliver a one-stop solution.
The Coruscate studied the demography of Kalamazoo and came to know that people of Kalamazoo rely more on owning cars or the metro transit buses for transportation. But the e-scooter market had so much potential as it was left untouched and the government of many cities in Michigan also wanted to bring the e-scooter to their downtown.
Apart from daily commuters and tourists, Kalamazoo is the home of Western Michigan University which accommodates more than 20000 students who are struggling in their daily transportation. So the app needed features that made it easy for users to get comfortable with.
The government of Michigan has strict laws on e-scooter service providers and users. Coruscate studied them well to avoid violating any of them.
Our concern
The main concern was to make this app in the IoT platform to establish a connection between e-scooter hardware and e-scooter software to make it more user friendly.
How to stop the underage person from using the service through application for safety and security purposes was another concern.
Solution Development
After doing strategic analysis and setting up UI/UX designs we started processing the application development.
Features of the application
Admin Panel
- View, edit or delete the user profile
- Contact details and current status of the user
- Show vehicle status, battery level, speed limits, number of rides
- Show ongoing, completed, reserved and canceled rides
- Show invoice of every ride
- Show all the successful, failed and pending payments with ride details
- Solve any queries of the users
User Panel
- Sign up with Google or social media account
- Validate your age to register (if your age is less than 12years then the app won’t register you as a user)
- Add card details to make automatic payments
- Locate nearby scooters with the exact location and battery level
- Scan the QR code to unlock the scooter and take a ride
- The ride can be traced through maps
- Lock e-scooter to end the ride
- Confirm the payment
- Rate your experience
Hardware Used
Earlier, the e-scooters didn’t have the advanced technical features like IoT controllers. So the e-scooter applications were not well featured. But the new versions of e-scooters with the latest IoT features, allow developers to make the applications with outstanding features. These features include theft alarm, high-speed alert, alert while approaching school or park, damage detection, and full remote access. We helped our client to select best e-scooter fleet.
Challenges faced by our team
Hardware challenges
An e-scooter application(software) and e-scooter hardware should communicate effectively on user or admin requests. E-scooter hardware establishes a connection with the backend of the app.
So syncing hardware and software was a very important and challenging task while developing the app. But our team came up with a fresh solution.
Software challenges
We have used the MQTT protocol to share data between software and hardware installed with an IoT controller. Since it works on a publish-subscribe model, it only establishes communication between devices.
Central MQTT broker connects all the devices and makes sure that all the subscribed devices get the correct messenger from the relevant device.
How does an On-Demand E-Scooter Apps Work
The functioning of the E-scooter is very simple. Once the user downloads an e-scooter app there are only 5 steps in which the user can complete the ride.
Search for the e-scooter nearby
Scan the QR code
Unlock the bike and start your ride
Lock the e-scooter once you arrive at your destination
End your ride
Technologies Used
Fly Rentals E-Scooter App Can run effectively on the following mentioned platform
Results
After working so hard, the app successfully went live. Its advanced features are also in line with all the legal regulations. No wonder Fly Rental is popular among the users. Fly Rental has proved that you can run a successful micro-mobility business in small cities with your genius business plan.
