Back-to-back rides

Back-to-back rides are instant job offers that a driver accepts while still on his current job assignment.

For a ride-hailing business a lack of drivers in specific areas and at certain times may result in:

- poor customer experience and subsequent choice of another provider

- lower driver performance and earnings due to fewer processed offers

- slower company’s revenue and business growth

Back-to-back rides help companies to cover more orders with fewer drivers and thus:

1. decrease the number of “lost” orders with “SEARCH EXCEEDED” status

2. increase driver occupancy by allowing them to take new offers while still on-the-go

3. reduce customer waiting time to enhance user satisfaction and retention

4. grow the number of successful rides and, hence, company performance metrics

Back-to-back rides feature can be switched on/off on a service level. By default it is enabled for the following services:

ECONOMY

BUSINESS

CLASSIC

ELECTRIC_VEHICLE

BLACK_CAB

To manage the feature a user with relevant role should access My Hub > proceed to tab Services > select the service you need > hover over to the “Allow drivers to receive a request for a new order while they are finishing a previous order” in General settings subtab and toggle the switch off/on.

Default “remaining completion time of current trip” is 5 min (300 sec). This is the time before the completion of the current trip at which the driver can be offered a back-to-back offer. The time is adjustable from 1 minute to 30 minutes.

The mechanism includes BUSY drivers who are processing another instant job into order distribution system.

1. Order status

Only OnTrip drivers with order status of active rides: Transferring, Review, Payment can be offered a back-to-back trip.

2. Mandatory drop-off

If an OnTrip driver conducts an order without a drop-off he can not be offered a back-to-back trip. In case the ongoing order is a multiple drop-off one, a back-to-back job is offered in case the OnTrip driver is approaching the last point in the active order.

3. Time before ongoing order drop-off

The remaining time before drop-off is time from the current driver’s location to the final drop-off point. OnTrip drivers, who are X minutes before drop off, can receive back-to-back orders along with free drivers. X minutes default value is 5 minutes.

4. No accepted pre-order(s) within 2 hours or less before the back-to-back job offer

In case a driver has a pre-order/s with a pick-up in 2 or less hours such driver can not receive a back-to-back job.

5. No accepted back-to-back job.

A driver with an OnTrip order can only have 1 back-to-back job at a time. If he has an accepted back-to-back job no more back-to-back offers are sent to him.

1. An instant offer first goes to the closest free/busy driver within the driver's radius and as per his order in line in the Intelligent queues algorithm.

2. If such driver ignores/rejects/cancels it or there are no drivers in this radius, then the order is offered to the closest free or busy driver outside their radius.

OnTrip Driver is notified on the back-to-back job with the same Green Card offer which changes to the Yellow one within 15 seconds. There is also a sound notification, so in case the driver is using a Navigator or keeps the app in the background mode he can hear the new incoming offer.

Back-to-back job offer screen shows ETA value which equals the estimated time from ongoing order drop-off to new pick-up point.

For example, if a driver has 2 min to complete the existing order, 1 extra minute is given as a default extra time, 5 minutes are the ETA to reach the new pick-up point, then the Driver sees 5 minutes as estimated time for the back-to-back job.

Driver app back-to-back offer map shows the route from his current trip drop-off to new pick-up point. Driver’s location is marked on the map as well.

Once a back-to-back ride is accepted the map screen in Driver app displays the current trip along with a black sign icon for a new pick up of the back-to back job.

By tapping on “Trip” button in the top right corner of the screen a driver can review both orders and manage them (cancel, contact the customer, start a chat etc.)

A back-to-back job is started automatically as soon as the driver completes the previous instant order. This is for the driver not to waste time and immediately head for the next pick-up.

ETA for a back-to-back ride as displayed in Customer app is calculated as the sum up of the 3 values:

remaining time from current driver’s location to drop off point + ETA from drop off point to new pick up point + an extra minute to cover some risks (delay during payment, taking bags from the car, etc.).

Once a back-to-back order is accepted Customer app screen shows driver details along with the ETA and a notification “Driver is finishing the previous order”.

The moment the driver has finished the ongoing job, the customer sees an updated order status: “Driver almost here” which means that the driver is on the way to the pick-up location.

An operator can review a back-to-back order assigned to a driver on the Operator App City map screen.

Proceed to the City map tab, tap on the icon of a “Busy” driver (a hollow pin with a white center) on the Map to open a “Busy” driver’s profile. The profile will display the ongoing instant order as well a subsequent back-to-back order (if any), marked as “Next order”.

Order list in Operator app records the ongoing and back-to-back job as 2 separate orders, the back-to-back order having status Accepted and a notification “Driver is completing previous order”.

An operator can assign a back-to-back job to a busy driver manually or using “Nearest Driver” auto search function on the map. If the nearest driver is Busy his icon on the map is a hollow pin with a white center, as opposed to a solid pin which stands for an Available driver.

Cancellation fee logic for back-to-back rides is the same as for instant orders.

In-app chat is available for both drivers and customers from the moment a back-to-back job is accepted by a driver.

One can track back-to-back rides in Order report. The analytics on back-to-back rides helps to verify feature usability as well as general data on the initiated, finished, cancelled back-to-back rides. In case the order is a back-to-back one, column “Linked order” in Order report contains the ID of the order the driver was on when this back-to-back order was offered. If the order is a regular instant one or a pre-order the column “Linked order” is empty.

Learn more on other type of orders in Instant bookings vs pre-orders post.