Mobile client to order a taxi

Today I will talk about the new possibility of the Kiev service uklon.com.ua - a mobile order that allows you to place an order to several taxi companies from your phone, using the java application.

Online order.

Pro online order can be found in the previous article . Immediately clarify what has been improved in the online ordering service after the last publication:
- the order creation sequence has been changed - now, to calculate the cost, you do not need to specify personal data;
- improved tooltip - fewer input fields, more options in the tooltip;
- Only completed orders are displayed in the history;
- improved homepage;
- A bunch of little things and fixes.
')

Mobile order.

The mobile client is a fresh alternative to a regular order via a telephone. The main advantage - the speed of finding a taxi - most often a few seconds, since the request is sent immediately to several taxi companies. You do not need to call the control room or wait for your call back, repeat the order requirements of another dispatcher in case of failure. If you are located near a computer with the Internet, you will certainly find it much more convenient to use a taxi order through an online ordering service . But if for some reason you do not have access to the fixed Internet or you are in a noisy place, you can try a mobile client. You can secretly order a taxi from others and quietly slip away from a boring company or shirk work =) And, of course, ordering through our service will cost less than catching a taxi from your hand.

Mobile order is available only for registered users uklon.com.ua . To get started, you need to read the instructions , download the application from our java site, set up the Internet for your mobile operator.
I will list the main features:
- as before the order is sent to several companies at the same time, so most often the car is within a few seconds.
- the ability to specify additional requirements: pre-order, station wagon, air conditioning, additional cost (actual at peak hours);
- cost calculation "on the fly" - immediately after making any changes to the order;
- the function “Order from history” - quick creation of the order with the route of the order already completed and the possibility of specifying additional requirements;
- the ability to make an order with a route to 10 points.

I’ll clarify that at peak times, users have to repeat an order several times until a car is found. This is due to the lack of free drivers. In the presence of a large number of orders, drivers can choose more attractive orders. To increase the success of the implementation, you can use the function "Added value". Having added 5-20 UAH to the order, users do not leave unless, if in the area of ​​giving an impassable traffic jam.

Work with a mobile client.

In order not to bother you with a large amount of text, I will give the main screenshots of the application, and you can read the technical details in the instructions .

Possible problems with orders.

Our service (like our world) is not perfect. Therefore, punctures, mistakes, defects occur. Rarely, but they float. The driver may refuse the order. This is usually due to the “accidental taking” of the order, when the driver is far from the delivery area (as they say, the fighter’s hand is tired of stabbing). If the order is canceled by the driver, our service tries to re-create the order up to 5 times or until the submission time is less than 8 minutes. If the machine is found, the client receives sms about the change of the machine, otherwise - a notification about the cancellation of the order comes.
The order may be canceled by the dispatcher as “client’s refusal”, although the client has not canceled the order. Our technical support team constantly monitors the quality of order fulfillment, all canceled orders are checked. We also ask you to inform us about all problem cases by email info@uklon.com.ua or in the feedback form on the order page. The mobile client also has the ability to leave a response.

Some technical details.

The mobile client was written in j2me, the LWUIT framework, used by IDE Intellij IDEA. The resulting binary was processed by the Proguard obfuscator.
I must say that LWUIT is very cool. True, I had to make some changes directly to the source. Even during the development of the previous project, we wrote our own set of classes of forms from which the entire application is built, so the development took place in a very short time (3 weeks).
For communication with the server, HttpConnection is used (I decided not to write with sockets, so as not to develop the server part, so now IIS processes all requests like web order). During testing on different platforms, problems with Sony Ericsson surfaced, so besides the standard emulator, their emulator was also used for testing. Even it turned out to be debugged under it in IDEA and fix the problematic connection via http.

That's all friends. All your wishes and comments will be taken into account, so we are waiting for your feedback!

ps I really want to know your opinions about the mobile order. Do I need it at all? What could be improved? Any ideas and suggestions can find a quick implementation!