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Rider App 4.0 Release Notes

Descriptions of what's changed in the latest rider app release

Nick Milum avatar
Written by Nick Milum
Updated over a week ago

We're excited to roll out a number of new features and improvements. This release includes an updated design to a number of pages throughout the app. Read on to learn what's changed!

What is the release timeline?

The general release date for Rider App 4.0 is June 2. Please note that in order to roll out this update safely, we use a strategy of a gradual rollout. This means that a greater and greater percentage of riders receive the update over the course of one week. This means that 100% of riders will have access to the 4.0 version on June 9th.

If you're interested in being part of the beta release for this app, please contact your Spare Representative.

Changes to Design

Below you can see a number of before and after screenshots for particular pages. These changes were made with two principles in mind:

  1. Accessibility, especially as it relates to screen readers and text resizing and

  2. Simplification of common workflows, especially in the settings menu.

The Home Screen

The Settings Menu

The Profile Screen

Single Trip Page

Trips Page

Favorite Locations Page

Payments Page

Agency Search Screen

New Features

New Feature: Show the Live Location of Fixed Route Vehicles

If your agency 1) uses Spare as your multimodal trip planning tool and 2) publishes GTFS Real Time data, this update is for you! You can now show the live location of fixed route vehicles directly in the Spare app. Help riders make connections between your on demand and fixed route services with greater ease.

Interactive Map & Stops

Riders can easily set a pickup and dropoff location from the home screen by just tapping on it:

If it's an address, it'll look like this:

Or riders can select stops and learn more information about them:

  1. From Spare Operations, set the stop as "Visible to Rider App"

  2. If you'd like to add an icon to the stop and make it more prominent to riders, mark it as "Important"

  3. Choose an icon and add an optional image:

Customize the Account Menu

Agencies can now add URLs, phone numbers, and email addresses to the account menu. To do this, navigate to Settings -> General -> Rider Interfaces -> Custom Links. Here's an example of a phone number:

Agencies can also remove certain items from the account menu if they're not utilized by riders. For example, Fleet Agreements are useful for agencies utilizing Open Fleets and sending trips to other providers. But this menu item might not be useful for your riders, so you can choose to remove it. To do so, navigate to Setting -> General -> Rider Interfaces -> Hidden Account Menu Items and choose what to remove.

Changes to the Trip Options Page

We're bringing changes to the trip options that riders see. The intention is to make it easier to glance through multiple options and choose the best one. For the changes below, please remember there are three types of trips:

  1. Leave ASAP - the rider wants to leave right now

  2. Leave At - the rider wants to leave at a certain time

  3. Arrive by - the rider wants to arrive by a certain time

There are also two ways of displaying time information to riders:

  1. Show Windows - pickup and dropoff windows are communicated to the rider

  2. Show Estimated Times - just estimated times are communicated to the rider

In the examples below, you'll see combinations of all of these:

Leave ASAP

Leave At

Arrive By

Some of the core benefits of this change include:

  • Riders can see trip duration now, a key part of a rider's choice for which service to ride and helpful information on this apge

  • Riders can also easily see walking distance at a glance and compare options with this in mind

  • Lastly, riders can know the times they might be travelling between - the earliest possible leave time to the latest possible arrival time

For agencies, this change also comes with a helpful feature: Service External Names. When editing a service, you'll notice a new field for Service External Names. If you have lengthy names for your services, this is a good way of cleaning it up for riders. Now, you can have a name that helps identify services internally like "City-Hopper Microtransit in Vancouver" but just a short name that riders know like "City-Hopper" displayed to them.

Lastly, this change is especially helpful when showing other trip options, like those utilizing fixed route services.

Here's an example

Changes to the Trip Timeline & Trip Pages

There are some design changes, as seen in the comparison at the beginning of this article above under "Single Trip Page". However, there are also some functional differences that we'll describe here.

Firstly, there are two ways of communicating pickup and dropoff times to riders, and you have the choice of which type to use: Windows or Estimated Times.

Showing Pickup and Dropoff Windows

When the rider is scheduling a trip, they'll see the pickup/dropoff windows only

When the rider is checking on a scheduled trip that's far in advance, they'll see the pickup/dropoff windows only

When the trip is <45 minutes away, the rider will see pickup/dropoff windows alongside an estimated pickup and dropoff time

Showing Estimated Times

When the rider is scheduling, checking on a scheduled trip, or the trip is <45 minutes away, the rider will only see estimated pickup and dropoff times

Email Login

Now, your riders can login with their email address in addition to their phone number. To do this, simply tap "Continue with email" and follow the prompts from there. For email login to be available for a rider, they must have that email address saved on their profile.

Notifications for Rider Representatives (Caregivers)

You can learn more about how Rider Representatives works here. This feature allows you to designate caregivers for particular riders and allow those caregivers to book on behalf of riders using the app. Caregivers can track their riders' trips as well.

In this release, we've added the ability for both the rider and caregiver to receive notifications. Previously, just the rider received these notifications.

Changes to "Driver Arriving" and Trip page

This is another "Before & After" design change, but there are some functional changes to note:

  • The blue banner for the driver arriving now shows up 45 minutes before the scheduled trip time. Previously, it was 30 minutes.

  • And if it's <15 minutes before the scheduled trip time, the app will just automatically open up to the trip-page.

We've also slightly changed the screen when riders are waiting for their trip:

  • We've removed the "see vehicle on map in X min" as we received feedback that this was confusing to users

  • We increased the time where the vehicle will show on the map from 8 minutes before the trip to 20 minutes before

  • And we've hidden the vehicle's location to users when the vehicle is on a break

Add Favourites from the Search Screen

Easily add new favourite locations from the new search screen by simply tapping on the heart next to the address:

Auto Verification Code for Android

Users on Android can now benefit from a feature that has been available on iOS - auto verficiation code input. When a user goes to log in and receives a code via SMS, the Spare app now automatically detects that code and prefills it in the app.

Here's how it works:

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