The Hotspot Phenomenon; How it works

Terms to be familiar with:

- A Rider is a Cabcorner.com user who engages the site for the purpose of traveling by way of taxi or car service.

- A Spot is a predetermined location, which enables us to protect the privacy of the real location of any given Cabcorner user while also providing us with a way to accurately calculate the distances and costs associated with a given ride.

- A Hotspot is a spot identified by us as a highly trafficked area with social and cultural benefits. Cabcorner.com label these spots using specific names (usually a coffee shop or semi-public space) that will offer users a place to congregate before sharing a ride. And in the near future, these Hotspots will present added value for our users by offering in-store deals, e.g. 2 for 1 coffee specials.

- A Yellow Cab refers to an NYC taxi.

- A Livery Cab refers to a car service or a private car, one that must be telephoned ahead of time.

- User A is viewed as the rider who posts a ride.

- User B is viewed as the rider who latches onto a posted ride.

- Groups are networks created by users who share similar ride patterns and thus might be more inclined to share a cab with similarly patterned riders. For example, members of a particular group may form if they share a common and routine transportation need, such as shopping at the same supermarket, or living and working in close proximity to each other.

Let’s show how a typical ride might go:

1. User A visits Cabcorner.com on his mobile device (blackberry, iPhone, etc.)

2. As a registered user he would sign into his account and fill in the location and destination fields of his desired trip. On the following page, he will be given the choice of selecting a Livery Cab or a Yellow Cab. — As an unregistered user he would be limited to yellow taxi sharing only and would have no profile information in Cabcorner’s database, making it more time consuming to fill out all required fields when signing up for a ride.–

3. The site would look for other similar rides. A similar ride must originate from a shared location but does not have to end in a similar location (for departure locations, cabcorner.com will only display those riders who are within a few blocks of the user unless the user intentionally widens his search area). If no ride can be found, User A will post his ride so that someone else, User B, would see his ride and have the option to join it.

4. If User A decides to post the ride, he will receive a text message informing him that he has posted a ride and if User B latches on to it, User A will be sent a confirmation email in which he will have the option to accept or decline the match. If he accepts, a shared location and time of where the riders will meet is presented to him.

User B goes to Cabcorner.com and signs in

1. If User B latches onto to User A’s ride and is confirmed, she is also presented with the exact spot and time where they will meet up. Keep in mind that riders are only matched up if their ride criteria sufficiently overlap in terms of proximity of departure location, desired time of departure, and the routes they both require to get to their respective destinations sufficiently overlap to generate cost savings for both riders.

2. If User A and B have chosen a Hotspot as their meeting point, they will most likely have an opportunity to take advantage of the services offered at these locations, which might range from browsing the shelves of the store to being able to redeem coupon codes for small deals being offered to Cabcorner.com users by the Hotspot affiliate.

3. If they are simply meeting at a Spot, there will be no promotion offered. User A and B will hail a cab, or wait for their livery cab to arrive (depending on which option they have chosen), and the final step will be to tell the driver their first and second destinations, which will have already been presented to the riders via Cabcorner’s unique Spot system. This protects both riders from knowing exactly where the other is going and it allows us to more efficiently calculate the cost savings for both riders. We only suggest a location that is fair to both parties, if both riders agree to some other destination spot, that is their choice to make.

4. After the ride is completed, each User will have the opportunity to give feedback (if he/she is a registered user) and we encourage our users to take this quick survey because it helps us better serve our Cabcorner community if we are able to identify those users who are exemplary and those who are not. With that information, we can create a quality ranking system which will be attached to each registered user’s profile.

5. The formation of Groups will come about as Cabcorner users begin to establish cab-sharing routines and begin to reach out to similar users. Cabcorner will also suggest the creation of certain Groups as patterns and demand dictate by offering group suggestions to the greater cabcorner community; such as when we identify a particular neighborhood as containing a high volume of riders going to similar locations repeatedly, we will suggest to the riders of that neighbor that they should form a Group based on their neighborhood affiliation.