Announcing Pay by Flywheel, The First Way Anyone Can Hail a Taxi on the Street And Pay with An App

Redwood City, Calif. - April 30, 2015 - Ride apps have revolutionized the transportation experience, but haven’t solved for the frustration that comes with waiting for your ride to arrive while another empty “rideshare” or taxi is right in front of you. Until now.  

Today Flywheel , the company revolutionizing the transportation industry to give consumers quick, safe, affordable taxi rides through a mobile app, launched Pay by Flywheel, a feature allowing users to hail a taxi on the street and seamlessly pay the fare via their smartphone. This sort of integration with real-world user behavior didn’t exist in the past with leading taxi apps or “rideshare” apps, which have always limited the user to requesting a ride through the app. The new technology is a massive step forward for the industry to make transportation more intuitive and simple.  

Flywheel brings advanced mobile technology to the taxi industry to deliver the best transportation experience to riders and drivers alike. Unlike alternative e-hailing apps,  Flywheel  does not charge exploitive surge pricing, and works with verified and licensed taxi drivers who know the city streets and have gone through a rigorous training and certification process, including federal background checks.   In recent months, the company has seen explosive growth, most notably with San Francisco’s oldest taxi company, DeSoto Cab , rebranding its entire fleet as FlywheelTaxis . This move represents the taxi industry doubling down on Flywheel and allowing the original transportation institution to actually compete with “rideshares.” One in six cabs in San Francisco is now a bright red FlywheelTaxi, which has rejuvenated the industry as well as commanded awareness around Flywheel among the San Francisco community overall.

“We’re giving people the ability to get in and out of a taxi without having to fish for cash or a credit card - something that’s not possible with rideshares” said Rakesh Mathur, CEO of Flywheel . “Pay by Flywheel makes the payment process a lot faster and more delightful. The convenience of mobile payments and the instant gratification of immediately getting a ride are combined with this new feature.”  

With Pay by Flywheel, users can now:

1. Hail a taxi on the street.
2. Open the Flywheel app (or download the app, if user is new), which will have detected that the user is in the middle of their ride, and select “Pay by Flywheel”.
3. When the ride is complete, select the amount to tip and rate the driver.

Contact Information

Bita Khaleghi

Account Executive

VSC for Flywheel

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