Inspiration
Anna used "dumb" phones for a very long time in college, and it was quite inconvenient to order Lyft through her friends or other people with smartphones. We decided to build a web app that allows you to order a taxi with just SMS!
What it does
SMSTaxi utilizes widespread cellular technology to bring the ride sharing to the masses. Current ride sharing platforms provide convenient, fast, and affordable transportation to many. Unfortunately, current systems require all users to use smartphones and have an internet connection. This excludes two large groups of people: those without smartphones and those without data. These two groups represent almost 25% of the American population and many more overseas. In India, only 22% of the population own a smartphone, creating a large market for SMSTaxi. Further, SMSTaxi will soon be cross-platform, providing users with more ride options.
How we built it
We built it using Node.js for back end and utilized the Lyft API and Twilio API.
Challenges we ran into
Some of the documentation we worked with for the API was outdated, and it was difficult to get things to work. Who needs sleep anyway, right?
What's next for SMSTaxi
We would like to fully implement all of the states and commands of the Lyft API, so you can get ETA, cost or other functionalities just through a text message!
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