Mobile app for transforming bike rental experience

This is due to an increased interest in a healthy lifestyle, environmental issues, and a desire to reduce global cities’ transport problems. During the pandemic, many cities faced an urgent need to find safe alternatives to public transport. This led to a sharp demand for bicycles as a means of open-air transport. Rental companies quickly adapted to this situation, making it possible to hire a bicycle for people’s comfortable and safe traveling.

Our client wanted to create a mobile application that would make the process of hiring bicycles more convenient, transparent, and interesting for users. This application should have included a wide range of functions, such as geo-tracking, an automatic bike lock and unlock system, cost calculations, billing, and the possibility to make online payments.

The main task of our team was to create a mobile application that would make the process of renting bicycles more convenient, transparent, and interesting for users of the company's services. The client wanted to implement a wide range of functions, including geo-tracking, an automatic bike lock and unlock system, cost calculations, billing, and the possibility of making online payments.

We developed an application supporting Android and iOS platforms with a strong backend, which makes it possible to reach a wider audience in the future and ensure security, data storage, and transaction processing.

For users’ convenience, access to the registration and authentication system is possible via email, social networks, or a phone number. With the help of their mobile, users can open and close bicycle locking mechanisms via the app. For this, the "smart lock" function was added.

In the application, you can rent not only ordinary city bikes but also other models available in partners’ stores, such as mountain or highway bikes. We implemented the integration with the partners’ stores management system via the API. This makes it possible to choose and book a suitable bike online from a wide range by filtering its type, size, technical characteristics, and other parameters. It is possible to individually configure additional functions and add data to the application interface about cycling speeds, the number of calories burnt, strength and physical loading indicators, information about the current weather and temperature on the route. The integrated notification system informs about the condition of the bike: a low battery level, the remaining rental time, etc. After completing a trip, you can rate the condition of the bike and the quality of services, leave your comment, and share this information on social networks.

The integration of GPS and Google Maps technologies allows you to track locations and displays up-to-date information about the nearest bicycles available. It also makes it possible to view the usage time, and the covered distance and monitor the rental session. Using a geo-tracker in the app enables customers to close a bike hire based on their current location. Before doing this, users have to give consent to access their location to ensure data confidentiality and compliance with security standards.

Rental costs and bills are calculated automatically based on the services provided and the time. Payment is made by credit cards, electronic wallets, and other popular payment methods.

We keep to high-security standards to protect the data of our clients' users. All transmitted information, including personal data and payments, is carefully encrypted and the application complies with PCI DSS standards. To access administrative functions and settings of the application, we integrated two-factor authentication.

Startup founders often have amazing ideas and are full of enthusiasm, but they do not always have deep technical knowledge in the field of information technology. Even though they have a clear vision of the final product and the target audience, they lack the experience and resources to bring the idea to life. Therefore, they look for reliable partners who can share with them the necessary expertise and support. These partners must understand not only technical aspects but also the processes involved in turning an idea into a real product. Such outsourcing companies help a startup avoid unforeseen technical obstacles and successfully achieve its cherished goal – a working and in-demand product on the market.

Some companies work with startups to make money in the future, whereas others dream of changing the world together. We have many examples of successful projects among startups. This collaboration provides a unique opportunity to become part of their way to success and gain useful experience, as well as gives lessons for our growth. We pave the way to development together, making a significant contribution of skills and knowledge to our mutual success.

In this project, for working process effective management, a flexible methodology was chosen, combining the best features of Scrum and Kanban. Planning and managing the project were carried out taking into account the iterative approach with the possibility of making changes in the course of implementation. The main emphasis was on creating functional cycles for fast results and constant interaction with the client. Review sessions were organized for transparency and understanding of the current state of the project. This made it possible to assess the archived progress and make adjustments to the plan for implementing specific tasks and functions. After each stage, new features were added, gradually expanding the overall functionality of the application. This approach gave us the possibility to constantly communicate with the client, quickly adapt to changes, and achieve the maximum level of consistency between the client’s expectations and results.

Aionys' role was to provide technical expertise in mobile app development and its experience working with startups. Due to our collaboration, the client received a ready-made bicycle rental application, and we expanded our experience in creating convenient and safe solutions for urban transport issues.

The Aionys team together with its client created a mobile application that makes the process of renting bicycles more convenient, transparent, and interesting for users. We created a reliable application with convenient functionality and high performance. The main characteristics of this project are users’ easy adaptation, the possibility to select and book bicycles, a smart locking system, monitoring and notification tools, detailed information about trips, secure payment methods, integration with social media platforms, and the use of machine learning algorithms to analyze the demand for bicycles, users’ preferences, for predicting maintenance services and detecting faults.

Having cooperated with Aionys, the client managed to achieve the following results:

• A release version of the Bikepro mobile application was created. It has convenient functionality and high performance, which makes the process of renting bicycles more comfortable, transparent, and interesting.
• Users of the mobile application can take advantage of a wide range of functions, including geo-tracking, an automatic bike lock and unlock system, cost calculations, billing, and making online payments.
• A high-security level of the application is achieved by integrating data encryption standards in accordance with the requirements of PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard).
• A reliable system of user’ authentication and authorization to prevent unauthorized access to information about personal and payment users’ data was introduced.
• The developed efficient and convenient application attracted new users, increased their loyalty to the product, and had a positive impact on sales.