Taking the FarePilot app out for a spin!

One of my favorite trends in the rideshare industry is that there are a lot of great companies with products and services popping up to help drivers earn more. This video & article is sponsored by one of those great companies, FarePilot.

I love partnering with brands like FarePilot because it’s a company that helps you make more money, and at the same time it helps us keep the lights on The Rideshare Guy and create great content.

Take a look at our FarePilot demo below, and scroll to the video transcript to read what we covered.

What is FarePilot?

FarePilot is an app built for rideshare drivers that helps you find hotspots nearby for your next ride. It gives you a calendar of major events in your area and it even tells you where you can go to find a bathroom while driving. So no more peeing and bottles!

FarePilot launched a few years ago in London to help cabdrivers analyze where it’s busy and suggest places for drivers to go to get their next ride. Now they’ve expanded to the entire United States.

I met with Scott, and like a lot of other Uber drivers in LA, he’s an actor. We’re going to go take this out for a spin and see what it’s all about.

Harry Campbell: So Scott, how long have you been driving for Uber and Lyft?

Scott:  Off and on since 2015.

Harry Campbell: Oh, so you’re a veteran.

Scott:  Yup.

Harry Campbell: What is the FarePilot app do and how do you use it?

Scott:  Well, basically it helps you make the best use of your time and it gives you places, suggestions on where you could be more likely to pick up a ride. What it does, it helps me know that I’m not wasting my time waiting in a dead area.

You can see if you’re in a lively area instead of just driving around all the time, hoping you’d get a ride. Cause I think it’s tempting as an Uber or Lyft driver to think, “Okay, if I’m driving then I’m working.” Well No, if you’re not picking up a ride. You’re just wasting your money and time.

FarePilot can help you better spots in unfamiliar areas

Harry Campbell: One thing I found too with LA being such a spread out city is I often find myself in areas that I’m not familiar with. I grew up in LA and I live in LA, but I find myself in parts of the city that I’ve never been in before. Has that ever happened to you?

Scott: There were times where I was in an unfamiliar area and I turned on FarePilot and I thought, wow, everyone must be using this FarePilot app because everyone’s in this hotspot. But then I realized, no, it’s not because they’re using that FarePilot so much. It’s because the locals know the local hotspots. And FarePilot knows the local hotspots. Even though I’m from really far away in Long Beach, I can be anywhere in LA County and get the local hotspots nowhere to go.

Demonstrating how FarePilot works

Let’s take this out for a spin? Yeah, definitely. All right!

Harry Campbell: What are some of the local hotspots?

Scott: I live in Long Beach, so, Main Street restaurants, the bars. They are active at certain times and other times they’re not. Another thing I’ve recently noticed about FarePilot that’s really is that you can actually move the map around and see what the hotspots are.

Harry Campbell: You can use it to plan ahead, right?

Scott: I also turn it off after I have passengers in my car, because it might be a little annoying to have passengers hear FarePilot notifications. I toggle the app on and off.

Harry Campbell: Maybe the option to turn off those notifications and have an ‘in ride’ mode would be a good app suggestion for them.

FarePilot helps drivers find bathrooms

One thing I noticed on the FarePilot app recently is the bathroom feature, which I think is really cool. Especially for drivers that are in, San Francisco, and downtown LA, it can be tough to find a bathroom. Have you used that feature at all?

Scott: Yeah, definitely. And the great thing about the restroom feature is it’s implemented in the areas where you actually need it. If you’re in some suburban area where there’s a bunch of Mcdonald’s that have restrooms that are unlocked, it’s not going to show up on the map. It’s more about the locations you need in Downtown LA. Shell stations have a lot of wonderful cleaning bathrooms that are easy to get into.

Harry Campbell: Now Scott, you just ended the ride up here in the hills of LA. We don’t know where we are. We don’t know what we’re doing right now. We’ve got to find the best spot to get a ride next. Let’s open up that FarePilot app I’ve and see what it tells us.

Scott: Click request hotspots. Magic happens.

Harry Campbell: Okay, so we got these three right here, so it shows me three spots. What would you do from here? How do you pick? Do you kind of analyze each one?

Scott: Yeah, well it depends too. Do I want to head back home south?

Harry Campbell: It would be nice if you wanted to head south back down to long beach and there was an option to get an hotspot south of you. Then you would probably pick, you might pick that hotspot that’s south since it’s in the general direction of where you’re headed.

Scott: So we could scroll up a little bit and check out what’s there.

Harry Campbell: We looked at hotspots and you know, I see over here they’ve also got the events tab.

Scott:  There’s an event that you can click on and it’ll pop up right there. What’s going on? You can go more info. Or if you want to see all the events, they’re all there.

Harry Campbell: What’s the one feature that you would like a FarePilot to add next?

Scott:  You know how Google maps shows future estimates on what the traffic is going to be like? I’d like that feature. So if I know I’m going to be in a certain area and I’d like to plan ahead a little bit at far as hot spots.

Harry Campbell: Thanks Scott for taking the store to spin and showing us how the FarePilot app works. I’m excited for this app because, it’s another cool tool and a driver’s toolbox. I think that the combination of hotspots events and of course finding those bathrooms is going to be a super, a valuable addition for ride share drivers everywhere.

Want to try FarePilot?

Feel free to leave a comment below. I’d love to know about the hotspots in your city and let me know if you had success using the FarePilot app. What information it’s told you. Download the FarePilot app here, and if you do have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out. Stay safe out there.