A Swedish company required a customized solution to provide shipping and moving services. Companies can use this platform to fulfill their worldwide shipping requirements.

We recently developed two hybrid mobile applications by which companies can easily connect with available drivers to fulfill their moving requirements quickly and safely.

The service consists of three parts:

• A booking request application used by customers to fulfill their shipping requirements.
• A booking service provider application used by drivers to find, review and service shipping requests.
• A web platform for the site admin to manage everything including customers, drivers and bookings.

The web platform is developed using Laravel Framework while the mobile apps are developed using a hybrid app framework named Ionic along with AngularJS.

The applications are available on iOS and Android devices. Google firebase cloud messaging is used for integrating the push notifications.

Booking request application

Customers can use the booking request application to create an account using an email. They can request bookings for transporting goods cost-effectively in five steps. Key features are:

Book shipping: Customers can book for shipping using a form. They can enter pickup, delivery, and transportation goods related details.

Accept quote: The system will send push notifications to the customer when drivers quote for the booking. The customer can browse through the quotes and accept the quote of their choice.

The chosen driver will receive a push notification about being selected and the shipping will then be assigned.

Shipment status: The shipment process is divided into several steps for improved clarity and transparency. When drivers complete each step, they will update the trip status – pending pickup, pickup completed, pending delivery, delivery completed etc.

Customers get notified about the status change via push notification and they can view the current status from the app.

Confirm receipt: Once the driver completes the shipping, the customer will be notified through a push notification and can either confirm or deny receipt of shipment. The booking will be closed only after the customer confirms the shipment receipt.

Booking service provider

Drivers can use the booking service provider app to create a driver profile using email, quote on bookings and carry out shipments in three steps. The key features are:

Place quote: Drivers will be notified via push notification every time a customer posts a shipping request. They can browse through available shipping requests and send quotes for requests of their choice.

Shipment process: Once the customer accepts a quote, the driver will be assigned to the shipping. The driver can then change/update the status of this shipment.

Each status change will trigger a push notification so that customers are always updated with the shipment status.

Web platform

The web platform is where site admins can monitor and manage everything related to the apps. It also serves as the API for mobile apps. Key features are:

View bookings: Admin can view every booking made by customers as well as the progress of the booking.

Manage customers/drivers: Admin can view, filter and edit users, change user status and block access.

Future challenges

Currently, we have completed only the first phase of the project. For the next phase, we plan to include several smart features to make the app more user-friendly and provide more relevant service to the end users:

Live-tracking: Currently, customers can only view the status of shipment and do not get live updates about the shipment’s location.

We plan to implement a GPS based tracking system with a live map so that customers stay updated about their shipment location and ensure shipment safety.

Review & rating system: Customers can rate and write reviews for drivers who have completed their shipment delivery.

Other customers can view such reviews ahead of selecting a driver for their own shipment.

Payment integration: The plan is to integrate payment gateways to several levels of the system.

Customers will have to pay the driver through the app itself once shipping is completed. It will also pay a commission to the client based on set parameters.

Company representatives: Presently, the app only supports one employee from a company ie. the customer. In the future, we plan to integrate a feature where multiple people from a company can be added so that several representatives of the same company can access the app.

This will make it easier for the company representatives to track shipments made by other representatives from the same company.