Revel works with Woolpert Digital Innovations and Google Maps Platform to make EV rideshare more accessible with fleet analytics.
BUSINESS CHALLENGE
Based in New York City, Revel Transit is the leading all-electric urban mobility provider. They aim to accelerate electric vehicle adoption in the ride-hailing experience and offer two all electric services including ridesharing and superhub charging stations throughout major cities in the U.S. The Revel team wanted to go beyond the average rideshare experience to give users an overall better experience. As the business continued to grow, they needed to find a reliable mapping partner to help scale their mobile app, streamline operations, and build trust with users.
BENEFITS
“Woolpert Digital Innovations & Google's ODRD service has elevated Revel's core technical capabilities in scaling our all-electric rideshare business. It has had a dramatic impact on both the end-user app experience and the efficiency of our internal optimization algorithms.”
WORKING WITH WOOLPERT
Revel outgrew their previous mapping provider and needed a more reliable partner. As a result, Revel sought out Woolpert Digital Innovations due to our expertise in Google’s mobility solutions. With our team’s support, Revel generated more accurate price estimates and streamlined the decision-making process, which increased overall demand. Google’s technology also helped improve internal operations and enhance the company’s overall efficiency.
“It was a great experience from start to finish. We were given amazing guidance and communication from the Woolpert Digital Innovations team, which in return has been very beneficial for our internal team,” explained Chirag Mital, Director of Data Science at Revel.
THE SOLUTION
With Woolpert Digital Innovations’ help, Revel decided to switch their mapping solution to Google Maps Platform. Revel’s business model runs on price-based estimates, so precision was crucial. Every minute matters to a user in the city and, according to Mital, “a few extra minutes in wait time means it’s 10% less likely a user will accept that ride.”
Revel implemented Google Maps Platform, On-Demand Rides and Deliveries solution to provide real-time tracking and better functionality for their ridesharing service. The On-Demand Rides and Deliveries solution offers the following capabilities:
- Route Planning APIs: Revel’s ride assignment and rebalancing algorithm uses traffic aware ETAs and toll awareness to optimize how drivers are assigned rides and where they go during idle periods.
- Address Context and Validation: Identifies the correct address for a pickup or drop-off to ensure drivers are being routed to the right location.
- Task Tracking: Allows users to track a driver’s route in real time.
- Fleet Analytics and Debugging: Visualizes and debugs vehicle location, speed, dwell times, and location accuracy.
Geocoding API is built directly into Revel’s mobile app, so once users enter their preferred destination, the app locates and assigns nearby drivers to decrease wait time. The Place Autocomplete helps Revel provide autocomplete functionality for location searches by returning places such as businesses, addresses, and points of interest. Revel also uses the Distance Matrix API to determine the most efficient travel routes between multiple trips.
The Revel team is also using Google Cloud. Cloud Logging provides Revel access to a fully managed, real-time log management solution with storage, search, analysis, and alerting at exabyte scale, which helps them quickly troubleshoot issues across their services and create Cloud Monitoring dashboards using log metrics.
Using a range of Google products and Woolpert Digital Innovations’ expertise, Revel has optimized their solution to make electric vehicle rides more accessible. In the last 12 months, Revel’s Google Maps Platform usage has quadrupled. As the company continues to grow, the team plans to use Google’s technology as their source of truth to enhance efficiency and elevate the user experience.
