What do the different color cars mean?


 

The different color cars on the map are just based on the preference of the driver. You only see available cabs, so no – a red car doesn’t mean that car is unavailable.

At any given time there can be many occupied cars that are invisible, because they are not available to be hailed. When they set their device back to “available”, they will pop back up as whatever color the driver chose. For example, many SF Green Cab drivers prefer to use Green cars – for obvious reasons.

In future, we plan to offer custom cars for specific color schemes based on the branding of our participating fleets.



What is Cabulous?


 

Cabulous is a smartphone application that makes it fast, easy, stress-free, and fun for passengers and taxi drivers to connect.

Currently available on the iPhone and in the browser, Cabulous allows passengers to see the exact location of nearby taxis and to hail one with the touch of a button.

The driver, in turn, is able to visually track his or her fare with a smartphone application – even if that passenger decides to walk down the block or around the corner.

Passengers can even add drivers to their “Favorites” list and spot them the next time they are driving nearby, a plus for drivers who want to build customer loyalty.



What makes Cabulous different from the other cab apps?


 

Other applications have three ways of hailing cabs. They can

  • (a) connect to old legacy dispatching systems (buggy!)
  • (b) broadcast passenger locations all over the city (creepy!)
  • (c) dial a dispatch phone number in your city (snore!).

Cabulous is NOT a booking system – it’s a giant electric thumb for hailing cabs in real-time on the street or from a café or other location. If you want to book a cab for a time in the future, we recommend using one of the older apps, like Taxi Magic.

The third thing that is really different about Cabulous (patent pending) is the ability of our passengers to set a pickup spot simply by holding down their waypoint icon and moving it around the map. Say you are on a cold street curb, and want to wait at the coffee shop you see on the corner. If you called dispatch or used any of the other apps out there, you’d be stuck where you are while you wait. But with Cabulous, you just move your waypoint to the new location, and the driver knows exactly where to pick you up, even if he was already on his way. And even better, he can see you moving to the new location in real-time. Again – no anxiety for driver or passenger.



How are you different from a taxi dispatcher?


 

Cabulous is not a dispatch system. Strictly speaking, Cabulous does one thing: it lets individual cab drivers who have GPS smartphones advertise their location to the smartphone maps of our users. We are an advertising platform.

Cabulous is also NOT a metering or payment system, but we feel that fancy payment systems won’t solve the real issue – uncertainty about hailing and/or waiting for a ride. Other people are working hard on how to more easily pay for your ride, and If one of these companies works out an insanely great way to do it, we’ll gladly add their solution to our app. In the meantime, we’re single-mindedly focused on making an insanely great pick-up and waiting experience.



What Does Cabulous Cost?


 

Cabulous is free to passengers.

Cabulous charges a small daily fee ($1.50 USD) to drivers, but ONLY if the driver accepts at least one hail that day. If the driver gets no hails, he pays nothing. Even if he gets 20 or more hails in a day shift (12 hours), the fee is still only $1.50.



Can I Use Cabulous In My Area Right Now?


 

We’re currently beta testing Cabulous in San Francisco, and that is where we are focusing our main efforts on ensuring there are cabs available for passengers.

Any driver anywhere in the world can simply download Cabulous right now and start telling passengers in their area to find them with Cabulous. For example, a two-car cab company, (College Cab), is about to be the first taxi company with Cabulous in Davis, California.

Think about it. If you are the first driver in an area with Cabulous, you are the only driver that your iPhone-using passengers will see on their map. This can be a great competitive advantage.

If you are a passenger outside San Francisco, and you want to be able to see your favorite drivers on your iPhone, find a driver or two in your area (many, many drivers have iPhones now-a-days) and tell them to get Cabulous.



Is there a different app for drivers and passengers?


 

Nope! It is a single application with two account types. Anyone can create a Passenger Account but only licensed, professional cab drivers can create a Driver Account.

You can also view available taxis around you using Cabulous as a guest, but you will have to sign up or log in to actually hail cabs.



Is my privacy safe with Cabulous?


 

Unlike many new location-based services, which broadcast your location to groups of other people, as a Cabulous passenger you are never visible to anyone except the one driver you choose to come pick you up. And when the cab has picked you up, the session is over, and you are back to being totally invisible to everyone.

Even when you load up Cabulous for the first time and it asks you to use your GPS, until you hail a specific cab, the only person with access to that GPS is you.

Professional Drivers, of course, can be seen by all Cabulous users, but that’s a good thing for them…they want you to see where they are so you can hail them. After they leave the program or switch to “Unavailable”, they go back to being invisible.



My location looks incorrect – Is something wrong?


 

You probably just have a weak GPS signal at your current location – go outside or find some clear sky if you haven’t already. If your signal is still weak outdoors, but you know where you are, you can still give a driver your exact location. First, hail a cab, then press and hold down on your location “pin” on the map to drag it to your location.



How Do I Find Cabs?


 

Once you turn on the Cabulous application, you will see a map of your general area with a blue dot in the middle – that’s you!

If you zoom in, zoom out, or move the map around to look for cabs, you’ll see a button appear that says “Show Me What’s Here.” Be sure to click that button – it will refresh your map so you can see all available drivers in that area. If you move your map but don’t press the button, you won’t see drivers appear automatically – just a warning!



How Do I Hail A Cab?


 

Once you sign up or log in, you have two options: if you just want the nearest cab, press the “Hail Nearest Cab” button and we’ll automatically try to hail the cab closest to you. Otherwise, you can press on any taxi you see driving around the map, click the blue arrow button, and then click “Hail Cab” and wait for the driver to accept the hail. (They have two minutes.)

If your driver doesn’t accept, try again! Even if you select “Hail Nearest Cab,” you won’t be sent to the same driver twice.


Have a question that we didn't answer here? Shoot us an email at support@cabulous.com