How would you build a ride scheduling feature?

• Bolt has a ride hailing product, which enables users to get from point a -> point b

• Though the current application already has a scheduling feature(launched in May 2023)- for this study I am making an assumption that it doesn’t exist yet

• Ride scheduling implies , enabling users(consumers) to book rides in advance(greater than x mins/hours/day and upto finite time range)

Explore the possibility of building a ride scheduling feature , which enables consumers to book rides in advance

Make cities for people , not cars.

Bolt is trying to offset carbon footprint by offering ride sharing, green options - EV cars, E-bikes, etc

I am segmenting the users by the need of their travel and using Bolt on demand ride product

• Planned commute : These users who are the ones who need to get at their destination at a fixed time and may have certain fixed/non negotiable needs/requirement

• Unplanned commute/travel : These users are mostly travelling last minute and not be time sensitive of reaching the destination or have an onward journey

• Focus cohort : The Traveller, as they are most likely to schedule a ride in advance and usually have a fixed time known before-hand when they will depart/arrive for the onward part of the journey-which is being fulfilled by ride hailing(Bolt).

• Travel point(POI) focus : I will focus on users, going from the POI(Railway station/Airport station) to their onward journey - as these are prominent POIs/landmarks which usually have greater concentration of drivers in the catchment area of these hubs.(High driver availability probability)

• Dev light solution : Driver partner ; I will utilise the existing matchmaking flow, so there will be no changes required on the driver partner side

• Ride type : For this iteration I am only considering 4 wheeler rides part of Bolt fleet (not the Taxis#)- assumption : Taxis may have lower fulfilment v/s Bolt fleet

• Interface : Consumer App, Back end 

User = Consumer

I will focus on P1 use cases only, for now

#Business Impact, Cost to Build : Shall be assessed on t-shirt size : L,M,H and solutions shall be prioritised as per that.

For the present scope on P1 prioritised item shall be picked up

• User will be shown an indicative fare with copy disclaimer, that the final price would be as per the actual price at the time of taking the ride

• Drivers matchmaking will work as per the existing manner

• *Ride scheduling min to max duration will be revised as per rollout feedback and further experimentation

• Ride scheduling feature will be planned to monetized later, as per adoption

• Checking local regulations regarding pre-scheduled rides

• Though Bolt’s mission is to make cities for people, not cars. However for this feature the company goal of increase top line(revenue and completed bookings) will be focused upon

• Competitors are already using this feature in the market, we might have to scale to other locales/POI for parity

• Scheduled rides should be moved to non cash mode of payment later to prevent false bookings, to act as a guard-rail

• Scheduled rides may need longer waiting time due to uncertainty of potential departure delay(from customer side)

Success Metrics

Key Metrics

• Increase in the number of bookings and revenue contributed by scheduled rides*

*Though Bolt’s mission is to make cities for people, not cars. However for this feature the company goal of increase top line(revenue and completed bookings) will be focused upon

Indicative Metrics

(Detailed in the diagram below)

Guardrail metrics

Benchmark with existing rides metrics

• Ride Fulfilment lesser than SLA for scheduled rides 

• High Driver not found that SLA for scheduled rides

• Complaint tickets higher than SLA for scheduled rides - Driver, Rider

• Rating score lower than SLA for scheduled rides - Driver, Rider

• Higher cancellations than SLA for scheduled rides - Driver reason, Rider reason

• Higher wait time than SLA time for scheduled rides - Driver, Rider 

Most of the regions where Bolt operates other competitors have already been offering ride scheduling feature, so there is a good PMF of this feature.

Key learnings from competitors

• Scheduling booking : Uber up to 90 days in advance , Grab 3 hours to 7 days in advance

• Scheduling fee : Grab charges 20k Indonesia; 8 $ SGD in Singapore ,Uber no extra fee

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Go to market

• Existing Bolt Users : Targeting by in-app pop-up, Push notifications, onboarding coach marks for the new feature

• Socmed content, Blog updation, Sales enablement, CareTech brief, Release notes update , Press release

• V1 feature should be free scheduling , monetization can be planned in v2 onwards

• Start with T-1 top 10 busiest airports and railway stations in Europe region

• For other locales fake door test to gather interest, icon will be shown which will display a coming soon popup and to register user interest and will later help in prioritising scale up markets

• Then will be scaled to other areas incrementally while monitoring the guard-rail and success metrics