inDriver: Making affordable travel accessible to all with Google Maps Platform

Deep in Siberia, just 300 miles below the Arctic Circle lies Yakutsk, the world's coldest city. In this remote and unforgiving location, a group of friends developed a solution that aims to disrupt the global ride hailing industry, and is spreading rapidly across the developing world.

inDriver’s unique selling point is that it enables customers to negotiate the price of their ride with the driver, a concept inspired by haggling among villagers. While competitors deploy algorithms to set fares, inDriver puts consumers in the driver's seat to reach a fair pricing point.

The platform was born from the daily struggle of living "in the middle of nowhere", as COO of inDriver Egor Fedorov puts it. The core team hails from Russia's minority Sakha people, who inhabit freezing villages in sparsely populated tundra. Hardship inspired the team's mission to launch the service anywhere in the world where people face a daily ordeal getting from point A to B. "We thought we could offer something to people in developing countries, because we know their pain," says Egor.

To succeed, inDriver needed an advanced mapping solution, as emerging world conditions vary widely, from mega cities such as Mexico City to remote Indonesian villages. The challenge led inDriver to Google Maps Platform.

"We needed the best mapping partner for our global expansion, and that meant Google Maps Platform. There's simply no better choice," says Egor. "We needed easy integration of quality maps, accurate route calculation, journey time estimates, assistance with addresses, everything. Nothing compares to Google Maps Platform."

Driving mobility solutions for the developing world

The inDriver story began during Siberia's legendary winter of 2012, which saw temperatures drop below -45°C. Yakutsk's centralized taxi services took advantage of the worst cold spell in recent memory by doubling prices. A group of students gathered friends to launch a rebellion. Their social network group matched private drivers with passengers, who then bargained over price. "It exploded overnight," recalls Egor.

Soon, the online message board had tens of thousands of followers, and Yakutsk’s entrepreneur Arsen Tomsky grasped the potential of turning the idea into a unique ride-hailing app, featuring cutting-edge digital solutions that would transcend borders. The following year, inDriver was born.

After finding success in neighboring Kazakhstan, inDriver felt ready for the global big time. That's where Google Maps Platform came in. By switching from a regional mapping solution, Egor says, inDriver found more than the best mapping tool available that would meet their requirements.

"We didn’t want to work with an impersonal corporation, playing by the rulebook," says Egor. "With Google, we’ve found the team to be completely open to a creative partnership. When they ask 'how can we help you?", we say things like 'we need new ideas on how to upgrade this region with villages where we have no information.' Then, we create plans together, and together we find a solution. We have ridden this journey together, and it's amazing. That's what I love about the Google Maps Platform team."

Versatile mapping to help people travel anywhere in the world

inDriver craved more than scale. It wanted to scale in the right way, meeting the specific needs of individuals in each market entered. To do that, before launching in any new market, Egor and his team carry out thousands of interviews with ordinary people, to understand their lives and problems.

Google Maps Platform, says Egor, enables inDriver to execute its vision of offering freedom and fairness in vastly different conditions. "We operate in mega cities like Moscow, as well as villages in Siberia, and towns in the Caribbean. Each place has different mapping requirements," he explains, "Google Maps Platform, from the geocoding API to the Maps Static API, allows us to meet the unique needs of every place."

For example, if inDriver deploys a full suite of Google Maps Platform APIs in Mexico City or Cape Town, such tools are not as useful in remote Indonesian outcrops lacking stable internet access and Google Maps penetration. The workaround? Satellite imagery, using the Maps Static API. In the absence of regular Google Mapping capability, inDriver can still direct drivers to a pickup point via Google satellite images of the location where the customer is waiting for a driver.

Even when there's no address, customers can provide a description of where they're waiting, such as "the temple with a red roof". The driver can then use Google Maps imaging to find the spot. To place an order, customers simply find the closest place with Internet access, and get a call back from the driver to work out details.

"With Google satellite imaging, you can still figure out the pickup point," says Egor. "You can see the routes, you can see the roads, and that means even without Google Maps Platform geolocation tools, you can guide the driver to the passenger. Google Maps Platform offers us the flexibility to operate anywhere in the world."

Meeting mapping needs for larger cities

Chaotic megacities pose an entirely different set of challenges. These, Egor says, are also met by Google Maps Platform. Big cities in the developing world can offer infinite routes to a single destination. The best route will depend on variables such as road, traffic, and weather conditions. Drivers, meanwhile, need precise address information to find their customer, without endless unplanned U-turns.

inDriver deploys a full range of Google Maps Platform APIs, including the Directions API, Places API, and Geocoding API, to address these needs. But there's a twist. Instead of running the data through algorithms to set a price, inDriver makes these factors available to both driver and customer, providing both parties with information to enable negotiation.

For example, if the passenger requests a cheaper price due to low traffic volume, the driver can counter that there are road-works at a central junction. This transparency empowers both sides to reach a deal that's mutually satisfactory. In the biggest cities, inDriver does use Google Maps Platform inputs to offer initial price guidance (using Google BigQuery to crunch the data). But this is only a baseline from which deal-making begins.

"Other platforms might use this information to fix their price, but we don't," says Egor. "By providing all Google Maps Platform factors to passengers and drivers, we enable them to cut a fair deal."

Using the full suite of Google solutions to fuel limitless expansion

In two years, the platform grew from its beginnings in Siberia to become the second-biggest, and fastest-growing, ride-hailing platform in the world. "We strongly believe that our ability to reach nearly 50 million people, after launching in Siberia with a customer base of 100,000, was made possible with the help of Google Maps Platform," says Marina Arzhakova, inDriver's vice-president of marketing.

As inDriver continues its journey of expansion, it is deploying a range of Google Cloud services beyond Google Maps Platform. In particular Google Workspace has been critical to a business that now has 10 offices on five continents.

"The Google Workspace ecosystem is essential. Today I see my teammates and staff more often on Google Meet than in person," says Egor. "And all of our knowledge is on Google Drive. That's more essential now than ever because of coronavirus. Google Workspace allows us to work seamlessly in these difficult times."

On the product side, Egor says, inDriver uses multiple Google Cloud features, including Google Compute Engine, Google Dataflow, and Google BigQuery, "on a daily basis".

The Google Cloud ecosystem is enabling inDriver to continue building mobility's future in the emerging world. It plans to start using the Distance Matrix API for a new carpooling service. And it's developing a "super app" (a mobile platform that provides multiple services) that will deepen inDriver's creative cooperation with Google Cloud.

As Egor puts it, "We’re building the future of our business, both in scalability and innovative solutions. All of the instruments that Google Maps Platform and Google Cloud offer are fundamental to that mission."