Ola removes the hassles of describing pickup points to cab drivers

In a bid to better tackle local nuances like one-ways, short-cuts, and unmapped terrains, Ola has launched three new rich features on its app to improve the experience for customers and driver-partners.

1. Ola Hotspots:
To ensure a seamless experience for customers and reduce hassle for drivers, Ola app will now proactively suggest ‘Hotpots’ closest to customer’s location and send it to the driver in the form of text, vis-a-vis a geographical location, which might not always be 100 percent accurate. This would mean, your Ola app can intelligently get your cab ride to a particular exit of your favourite mall, without going through the to and fro phone calls.

2. Snap to historic pick-up
This feature uses a customer’s past rides as a reference point when triangulating the user's historic pickup point vis-a-vis booking point. Ola will collect data about the user’s booking and boarding patterns, allowing the app to automatically suggest the current pickup location when maps can be inaccurate. However, customers will have the choice to override the suggested pickup location.

3. Share Directions
As soon as a customer books a ride, they will now get an option to ‘Share Direction’ with their drivers, allowing the user to feed in the landmark closest to their pick up location that will be communicated to the driver instantly. While Ola’s GPS and Navigation guides drivers to their pick up location, it may be a challenge to navigate through the many lanes and bylanes of the Indian cities.

This feature can also be used to give specific instructions to drivers - like knowing which apartment to ask for at the entrance of a gated society.

Ola recently announced its integration with Apple’s iOS10, where iPhone and iPad users can book an Ola cab using Siri, as well as through an independent app on the Apple Watch.