NEW VERSION DRIVERS - 2025

Barring any hiccups today, we are planning to launch a new version of Ride Connect later this evening (Dec 20 2024)

By popular demand we have decided to give the ride seeker more control on which driver shows up, allowing them to set the radius in kilometers from pickup location they want drivers to see there requests and setting a rate per km and rate per hour waiting time limit to which drivers will see there request.

Another factor in this decison was the driver's saftey, there were complaints on hardly having a chance to check out any requests as they were driving or even not fast enough on the phone, now requests will be on drivers screen's longer allowing everyone a fair chance to offer.

Ultimatley it is the ride seekers who are paying to keep the app alive and are also the ones spending the money on drivers, so we agreed to give this a try.

So for the drivers the first thing you want to do is make sure your vehicle rates are up to date, ride seekers will now be able to see these on the list of offers they recieve and will be a factor in who they choose.

Below is the main home screen when you login to the app, at this stage all open ride requests that you have permission to view will show on screen, if none are available you will see a note saying it is empty.

The vehicle view at the top only shows up if you have more then 1 vehicle, the vehicle icon that is less visible is the currently selected vehicle and any requests you have permission to view will only show if that vehicle's seat capacity matches the request's seat capacity or is higher.

Also a note on the offers, lets say you offer on multiple trips, even some that would overlap, and then a ride seeker accepts you as the driver on one of those, ride connect will take any offers OUT you have on other requests that overlap with the request you were just awarded and those will no longer show on your screen.

Above are the popup options you get when you press the oval dropdown called "Filter by..." These are your filter options

The actual view may differ depending on your mobile phone.

"Show All" will allow you to view all requests you have permission to view.

"My Trips" will show you all the trips you have booked but only the ones from current day and onward, you will notice all requests you have booked will show with a gold border.

"Offered On" Is as it states, this will show you all requests you have offered on only.

"Not Offered" will show you all open requests that you have NOT offered on yet and are allowed to.

"By Request ID" will reveal another input box, here you can enter the Ref number which is always at the top if each request in the gold bar in brackets, this might be handy if you have alot of requests and a rider asks about a specific request, you can quickly enter the Ref number to filter it out.

"All Day Trips" will filter out any requests that have been marked by the rider as an all day trip.

"By Date" will reveal two date inputs, "On date" will filter all open requests of only that date, handy if you want to try and find a trip for a certain date, "Before date" will as stated, filter out all requests on the day selected or sooner.

Both these options will only be helpful if there are many requests in the list and takes long to scroll through them all.

"By Ride Seekers" will reveal a multi-select box, when you click inside it, you can select Riders, you can select muliple at once, this will filter out only requests from those ride seekers, again only helpful if there are many requests in the list and takes long to scroll through them all.

"History" will show all ride requests you have booked that are 1 day and older or that you have marked completed, Ride Connect deletes all requests that are 30 days old. 

The "Sandwich Booking" button on your home screen is NEW, it will reveal the popup as shown above, it is now easier then ever to go into Sandwich booking mode, all you have to do is press the "Current Location" button and it will update your location to the location you are at the exact moment, you can then press save. 

You will now pickup any requests in that area for that partiular day that ride seekers allow you to view.

While your sandwich location is NOT set to your home location, you will have a gold banner on your home screen reminding you you are in sandwich mode and to set this back to "Home address" when done.

Please note the driver does not control the radius in which they pickup requests anymore, the ride seeker control this from his end when creating the ride request.

Contacting the ride seeker is only allowed after you have been awarded the trip by the ride seeker.

Above is a request as it would look on your screen, the information icon that is circled is where you can click to get all the ride seekers name and address.

You can click the green Phone and SMS text icon to directly initiate a phone or text on your mobile phone.

Above "Pickup location not home address" is only shown when the rider creating request selected a pickup address other then there home address

You can click on the "Map" button, this opens the popup request menu and the top option "Map to Pickup" will open your default mobile phones Navigation app and enter the directions from your current location to the requests pickup location.

As seen above on the new request widgets, we have given the riders the option to select a time when they expect to be dropped off at the destination and also a time when they want the driver back to head back home.

This time frame (in the example above) 10:00am to 4:00pm the drivers schedule would show open and if the driver chooses to go into sandwich booking mode, while in Linwood (as in exmple above) they could receive requests and notifications in that time range.

Be careful to make sure you allow yourself enough time to get back for the evening pickup time (4:00pm) to take your original trip folks home.

We give the driver an option to adjust this time frame once they accepted the request, more on that further below.

Above is an example where a ride seeker requests the driver for the whole trip.

Above is the expanded version of a request widget when you press "Click to view rest of request" this gives you addtional information about the trip.

To collapse the request again, press "Click to close again"

To offer on a trip click the triple dots on the bottom right of the request widget when it is expanded.

This opens the menu button above, press the book trip button.

The "Map to Pickup" and "Map to Destination" buttons will open your default mobile phones Navigation app and enter the directions from your current location to the requests pickup or dropoff location.

This opens the Confirmation popup, it also displays the distance and time from your exact current location to the request pickup address, this is helpful if you are in sandwich booking mode.

The distance and time from your home location to pickup location is also helpful to know how early you have to be ready if you are awared trip.

Make sure to have your rates up to date in settings under the vehicles section, if you have 2 vehicles and both fall into the ride seekers criteria of enough seats, rate per km and rate per hour of wait time, both will be shown at the step and also to the ride seeker on his end.

You can then press the "Offer" button to submit your offer.

The above view shows how the request looks once you have offered on it.

Trips you have secured will show with a gold border and also be visible in your calendar (More on the caelndar later) 

Above are the two examples of widgets, the top one is where the rider requested the driver for the whole duration of the trip, the bottom one is as it states in the center section, the driver is free from 10:00am to 4:00pm.

To change this range to suit your schedule click the button.

This opens the slider option as seen above, this allows the driver to further close the range if required based on your schedule, doing this will also block that time on your calendar/schedule and you won't have requests or notifications bothering you.

You may choose to close the range all the way if you have other plans for that time range, then you will not see any requests, not even if in sandwich booking mode.

To cancel a trip navigate to the triple dot menu button and press it.

Here it gives you the option to "Cancel Trip"

This opens the popup as above, you will need to select one of those options.

After selecting, the "Choose Reason" button changes color and says "Cancel Ride" and becomes clickable, pressing it will send a notification and email to the ride seeker with the information you provdided.

Use this option only when necessary.

Although totally optional, you have the option to mark trips complete when your done, you can find this option in the Menu, again from the triple dots bottom right of the request.

This button is only available on the day of the trip or later.

Marking it complete will take it off your calendar and move it to your History so you can only view them with the dropdown filter selected "History"

All Requests over 30 days will be totally removed from Ride Connect app.

Above is the main month view of the calendar, any trips you have booked and have not been marked completed will show on this calendar.

You can set different views as per the buttons top right.

All trips that have the been marked by the rider that the driver is free between morning dropoff and evening pickup time range will now show as 2 ranges on the calendar but of the same color.

All trips the rider needs driver for duration of trip will show as one event on calendar only.

By pressing the "Add unavilable times" button in the top center, it will display the popup as above, this is a great way to enter date and time ranges for vacations, time off, other trips booked outside of the app, by adding these the app will make sure not to send you requests, notifications or emails, it keeps everything cleaner.

This way you can be rest assured if your calendar is up to date, any request and notification coming through on the app is because ride connect has checked your calendar for trips and realized none of them overlap.

That said MAKE SURE to check the times, ride connect has no way to know where you are and cannot account for time it will take to drive to the pickup location, or if its is a sandwich run, how much time you will need to drive back to the other trips location to take them back home.

Above is the "Day" view, this can be accessed by pressing the DAY button at top right and also by pressing on a day on the calendar month view, not on an event, but on a day block

By clicking on an actual event on the calendar it will popup as above and you can navigate the request the same as on the home page.