Flywheel’s smartphone taxi meter, TaxiOS, gets green light in California

Flywheel, the company on a mission to help taxis better compete with on-demand transportation companies such as Uber and Lyft, may be a step closer to reaching its goal after the California Division of Measurement Standards approved its smartphone taxi meter, TaxiOS, for statewide use.

The mobile app runs on the driver’s Android smartphone, replaces traditional taxi meters and acts as a payment system, a navigation system and a dispatch system.

Passengers can continue hailing cabs off the street and pay using traditional methods, but will have the option of hailing and paying for a cab through the Flywheel app, like they would an Uber or Lyft.

Flywheel Chief Executive Rakesh Mathur said the Redwood City company now must get taxi fleets across the state to adopt the technology. But he doesn’t think they’ll need much convincing.

“The existing equipment in a taxi replicates everything a smartphone already has, and all that stuff is more expensive than a smartphone,” Mathur said. “It takes a lot of money to install, it’s inherently unreliable, and 30% of cars have to come into the garage because of problems with those devices, because at the end of the day, you’re dealing with a mechanical device.”
In comparison, TaxiOS is a “unified device” that Mathur says opens up all kinds of possibilities for taxi fleets, such as split fares, taxi-pooling, last-mile package delivery and dynamic pricing.

TaxiOS runs on Android. The Flywheel app is currently available in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Diego, Sacramento and Portland, Ore.

Twitter: @traceylien