Bharat Lyft (https://github.com/deepaknairrpf/desi-lyft/wiki/Welcome-to-Bharat-Lyft-(-A-NOT-FOR-PROFIT-APPLICATION))

Bharat Lyft is a utilitarian ubiquitous not-for-profit app which aims to promote sustainable mobility. It provides an opportunity for people to schedule a lift in a vehicle and connect them to another person who might feel generous at the moment to offer someone a lift. This app is not currently focussed to be incentivized and rather a step in the direction of social responsibility. This app ensures that the person offering a lift will incur no deviation from his intended optimal route and the passenger seeking lift will always be assigned a ride with a pickup point, within a threshold of 500 mts. We believe this app, if used regularly will greatly cut down traffic congestion, carbon footprint and cost involved in transit.

Workflow

The general workflow of the app is as follows:

1. A passenger seeking a lift schedules a lift at a specific time. ( A lift can be scheduled even for the next minute)
2. Whenever a user with a vehicle choose to offer a lift, he gets assigned a passenger who had earlier scheduled a lift such that the passenger's route is within the most optimal route of the user. The app will direct the passenger to pickup point (within 500 mts) on the rider's route where he can be picked up and the trip starts.
3. The lifts gets assigned currently on a first come first serve basis. The app now takes the rider to Google Maps with the passenger's pickup and drop point added as stop points in his route.
4. The rider drops the passenger at a point in his route which is lesser than 500 mts from the passenger's destination point.
5. The rider and the passenger rate each other's experience.

Future improvements

1. SOS and share trip functionality to ensure safety of everyone involved.
2. Prioritize a passenger's lift request based on his rating / the number of lifts he has offered to others.
3. A way to incentivize the app via admobs or donations to keep the app live on AWS !
4. Partner with other companies' social responsibility campaign through sustainable business plans.