When you need to get somewhere specific, are in a rush or simply don’t know your way around, taxis can offer a simple and convenient way to reach your destination. Every day all over the world, taxis deliver on this promise, bringing people to wherever they need to go. Yet often, the experience is not quite as expected: sometimes the driver seems suspicious, the journey surprisingly long or prices a little too high. But not only for customers, also for drivers the shared experience can be unpleasant because customers misbehave and can potentially threaten their earnings, property and safety.
All this creates insecurity for both sides. Therefore the ambition of this project was to make taxi rides more joyful and safe for both customers and drivers. We carefully crafted solutions that would help facilitate the ordering process and improve the overall experience. These include pinpointing arrival times, creating transparent routing and rates, and providing opportunities for feedback for customers and drivers.
During the course of one year we designed the service vision and detailed designs for the first release, consisting of individual touch points for customers, drivers and venues. These included a smart phone App which enabled customers to place orders anywhere in the world, a special navigation device for drivers to receive taxi orders, and a small terminal device intended for public venues (like restaurants, bars and hotels) that allows people to order taxis to the venue’s location with just one convenient press of a button.
TomTom Taxi was a product initiative by TomTom, led by Steven Blom and Otto Ruys. Nina Vöge was the lead designer during her time at the TomTom User Experience Design Team.