Transportation technology company rideOS has expanded its offering following the launch of a new ride-hailing platform featuring the Ridehail API and open-source apps.
The new Ridehail API aims to offer an easy way for automotive OEMs, autonomous vehicle (AV) developers, and transportation network companies to create and manage their own ride-hailing network using rideOS’s underlying technology.
It is designed to efficiently match riders with vehicles and manage trip state, and is available as a standalone backend API, or through new open-source driver and rider apps for iOS and Android.
According to rideOS, “this is the first time a set of ride-hailing applications have been open-sourced, allowing customers to rebrand or build new features on top of these new applications”.
“Starting and maintaining a ride-hailing network is unnecessarily complex,” said Chris Blumenberg, rideOS chief technology officer and co-founder. “The plumbing it takes behind the scenes to route, dispatch and optimise a high-quality, ride-hailing experience is tricky to build and time-consuming to maintain.
“Our Ridehail API takes care of this plumbing, so autonomous companies and OEMs don’t have to, saving them time and money so they can get to market faster.”
The rideOS ride-hail platform is base-map agnostic and compatible with both human-driven and autonomous vehicles. Users can choose from a variety of integration points across the technology stack.
These include open-source apps to quickly deploy fleets with little-to-no integration time. Customers can rebrand the app by inserting their logo and swapping in their desired colour palette.
Furthermore, the Fleet Planner API builds dynamic and optimal plans for vehicle fleets including single rider and carpooling rides. This service is aimed at companies that possess basic dispatching services in an existing app, but want to offer pooled trips or improve fleet efficiency.
Finally, the Routing API is designed to get routes and accurate ETAs based on traffic conditions and the constraints of a given vehicle. The rideOS routing engine was specifically designed with AVs in mind, but is also compatible with human-driven vehicles. It can define keep-out zones and restrict certain manoeuvres based on the capabilities of the AV.
New rideOS partners leveraging the Ridehail Platform include Voyage, which is deploying the platform across its fleet of self-driving cars, and Here Technologies, which has integrated its mobile software development kits and Open Location Platform with rideOS’ ride-hail platform.
“We’re excited to partner with rideOS and have seen great success in using the ride-hail platform to power vehicle dispatch, routing, and trip state management in our communities,” said Voyage CEO and co-founder, Oliver Cameron. “The technology has made it seamless for us to optimise our fleets, so our team can focus on building a state-of-the-art, self-driving car without sacrificing additional time and resources.”
