Sun Wukong: A New Taxi-Style Essay For Melbourne Airport.

Sun Wukong (SW) is a new taxi-style service that delivers customers to and from Melbourne Airport. Rather than working on pre-fixed rates based on distance and time, SW sets fees based on the demand. The system will then broadcast to the drivers who will then bid for the service within 5 minutes. A comprehensive set of tools such as distance, route, estimated time, toll costs, etc. will be provided on the app to both parties. An estimated cost will also be provided. The customer will see in real time the responses by the drivers. And once selected, the cost is locked in. Payment will only be released to the driver-provider at the end of the journey as determined by Global Positioning System (GPS) location. The entire journey will be tracked.
 
 To achieve this goal, it has embarked on the following:

i. SW requires all drivers to be accredited, pass a criminal check and a test on familiarity with the apps required to do the job.

ii. The system will allow both customer and driver to rate each other and provide comments. A star-rating system will appear for both customer and driver next to their online verified IDs.

iii. Customers who are not using SW’s mob booking App  or tourists may use a web site to make bookings. Those without credit/debit cards may be able to purchase gift cards from Eleven-Seven stores.

1. Put together a proposal that outlines technology requirements to accomplish the 3 service objectives described above
2. Prepare a proposal that will enable SW to reward loyal customers with Free Eleven-Seven Coffee Vouchers that could be stored/managed via mobile devices.

About Sun Wukong

1. Any company that provides taxi- services to customers need to recruit their drivers by carrying out a background check on them. Sun Wukong, before hiring drivers can utilize technologies used for recognitions and processing of such as form, passport, credit card, invoice, MICR, OCR, OMR, ICR, BARCODE and many more (Gowda & Gopalakrishna, 2015). These forms are of various sizes and shapes as well as uses. LEADDTOOLS has various tools that handle all the forms. This set of tool scan recognizes the basic forms. Along with that, it can also detect the unstructured process as well as documents that are semi structured such as driver’s license, invoices, passport and many more. The verification would help the company to verify whether the drivers have any criminal record. This verification of criminal history should be permitted and available by law. This check would also allow the company to look into the driver’s credit history. This can be carried out only after the law grants permission. The driver’s credit history comprises of reports obtained by three agencies of credit called TransUnion, Equifax and Experian (Gowda & Gopalakrishna, 2015). This check can be carried out free of cost once a year by taking the permission of law. Credit checks can be used further for various purposes. Some of these purposes include checking whether the drier has the means to clear rent on time, handle anyone’s money or pay the car note. This is one of the best procedures that can be carried out in order to ensure if the person is responsible enough (Lee, Gyu-Bong & Kim, 2016). It can also check if the person has the ability to manage finances and live within the means in a responsible manner. However, some states have declared it illegal to judge someone based on their credit score but it helps in many ways. Drivers can also undergo a check for their driving record. This proves whether the driver has a clean record of being a good driver (Smith & McCormick, 2018). The driving record also known as Motor Vehicle Report (MVR) includes license, which gives the status of their driving, traffic accidents, record points of their driving, violations of traffic law, fines and convictions, DUIs in the public record (Smith & McCormick, 2018). It also checks if the license of the driver is valid, cancelled or suspended. Education verification is one of the important verification that is carried out because most of the time the resume consists of wrong information regarding the education of the driver. They might claim to receive higher education but in actual they might be lying. This check is carried out in order to verify that the driver has received the education that he claims and the institute from where the education has been received (Smith & McCormick, 2018). Most of the time this verification is not included in the background check that is regularly carried out. In this check, the institute or school is called ad verified if the driver has received the education from there. In most of the jobs, the employees are required to go through a reference check. This check helps the company to know how the driver is when he is in his shift time (Lee, Gyu-Bong & Kim, 2016). This check gives the employers an idea regarding how the driver treats the passengers when he drives for them, how he interacts with them, how polite he is and how patient he is. This check also allows the employers to know regarding their past jobs and their performance there. Not all the companies do it, but it is very important to now the driver well. Drug screening is one of the most important tests that are carried out (Lee, Gyu-Bong & Kim, 2016). This rest is done in order to ensure that the driver not under any drug addiction, which can cause harm to the driver as well as the passenger. This would affect the image of the company in a negative way. The improvement in technology has helps the companies to carry out this test in a decent way (Lee, Gyu-Bong & Kim, 2016). This test would help the company to know if the driver is under any drug addiction even if he is lying about it. One more check that the company can carry out is the criminal check of state, country and federal. This is kind of a background check that is carried out only if the applicant allows permission to do so. This check reveals any criminal history of the driver (Tripathy & Leepsa, 2017). This check is usually referred to as “rap sheet” and it often has offenses at the state, federal level and country. Rap sheets are a record of Felony convictions, Misdemeanor convictions, past arrests, Warrants, current pending charges, dismissed charges, acquitted charges. This state might cause problem for the organization as well because sometimes the crime of the person might  not be updated in the database or sometimes the criminal record of other person might be present in someone else’s record (Nehowig & Konezny, 2017). This kind of mishaps would be harmful for the driver as well as the company. While carrying out this rather check the entire database should be checked and ensure that the records match with the applicant. Any sort of false negatives or false positives should be avoided. A lien in supposed to be imposed by the law (Koffman, 2016). This is imposed on a part of property owned by the person for securing the payment for the debt. Employers sometimes check weather the employees have any liens or judgments. This check is carried out in order to ensure that the person is responsible enough, has a lifestyle that is stable and does not have any outstanding debts that are left to be paid or judgments left to be carried out. Not every company performs this check (Smith & McCormick, 2018). This sort of information cannot be hidden because if a person has some amount of money due to a particular civil judgement, it would be shown in the credit report of the person. This can also be seen if an in-depth checking is carried out in someone’s records regarding legal activities. Most of the background checks are shallow that check for major life events or indiscretions like civil judgments, arrest, identity frauds, severe misconduct and many more. If the company needs to know more regarding someone before giving the job, the company should carry out the checks (Bell, Taylor & Chen, 2017). A private investigator can be hired in order to carry out these checks. These checks are carried out I order to ensure that the personal documents provided by the person are authentic and they are really who they claim to be. Employers can do this by checking social security number that is provided along with the information at Social Security Administration. This is done by matching the data in a 1-9 in the field of Social Security Administration and Homeland Security’s records (Tripathy & Leepsa, 2017). This check would also verify whether the person is eligible to work in the state.

How Sun Wukong Works

Feedback is one of the best ways that helps a company to find out its loopholes and work on it. It explains the demands of a customer very well. Feedback for customers as well as drivers would help the organization in many ways such as know if the driver was good enough in the trip, know both side of the story (Rowe & Fiorucci, 2017). Most of the companies use feedback for the customers and not for the service providers. Providing the right to rate the customers as well clears out confusion greatly. The technical requirement necessary for the company to provide right of feedback to drivers as well as customers is SRS (Rowe & Fiorucci, 2017). SRS stands for Software Functional Specifications. This technology helps the company to know more about the requirements of the customers and the changes that they want in the services provided by the company (Feeney & companies Uber, 2015). This specification would be included in the application of the company. After every ride, the customer as well as driver can rate each other based on their personal experiences of the ride. This would clear confusion because the company would know both the side. Sometimes the customers might rate the lowest to the driver without any valid reason and vice versa (Feeney & companies Uber, 2015). Knowing the rating provided by both of them would help the company to assume what actually happened.

Most of the people nowadays own a Smartphone but some of them who do not use smart phones would not have access to the company app that can be used in order to book a ride. Company can create an Html page, which would contain all the specifications available in the app. starting from booking a ride to providing feedback (Adewumi, Odunjo & Misra, 2015). The experience might not be as smooth as the app but the work done by the page would be similar to the app. People who do not have the app can access the page and book a ride for themselves. This can be done by just registering using their number and some more details about them. The price can also be paid through cards using an option that would be provided in the page (Venkatesh & Easaw, 2015). The experience of the ride can be shared on the same page by clicking a specific option.

2. SW can use a policy that would state that the loyal customers would be rewarded with special services such as free rides or discount on rides and many more. These policies would help the company to gain the customers’ confidence on the company (Geradin, 2015). A specific policy can also be used in which the customers who would invite their finds to use their application would be rewarded as well. One more policy that the company can use is the Free Eleven-Seven Coffee Vouchers. These vouchers would be stored as well as manages through the owner’s mobile device (Nehowig & Konezny, 2017). This is a program of coffee-reward according to which, every time a customer purchases a cup of c offer of any size, the cashier would scan the barcode of the member in the application of the company. This would provide the custometr to avail a fee medium size coffee after every six purchase made by them. His would help the company to create a good bond with its customers. According to past records, shop at 7-eleven stores has been so famous that it has become a part of the lives of millions of people (Horwitz, 2015). In this policy, the participant need to text “BREW” and send the message to 711711. Then the customer clicks on the dollar sign on the top of the page, this redirects them to the coupon page. There the participant would receive his digital coffee punch card and the personal bar code to avail the offer. When the cashier scans the personal bar code, the digital reward card of the customer is automatically punched (Jonas, 2015). After every punch, a star icon shows up in the application of the company. After the customer is awarded with the sixth star, coupon for a free medium sized coffee appears on the application. After the customer redeems the coupon with free coffee, the process of punch card starts all over again. The Dallas-based chain supports this policy. This policy is advertised on social media, television, radio and many more platforms (Liss, 2015). The customers can use this program to earn credit points and redeem the rewards at the location of 7-eleven in parts of Austin, Chicago, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Northern U.S. this program would help the company providing cab services to people to increase its customers as well as the coffee company to increase its loyal customers (Barglind, 2015). Both the company would be benefitted by this program.

References

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Geradin, D. (2015). Should Uber be allowed to compete in Europe? And if so how?.

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Lee, K. T., Gyu-Bong, O. H., Kim, W., & Lee, S. Y. (2016). U.S. Patent No. 9,363,106. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

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Nehowig, K. R., & Konezny, R. E. (2017). U.S. Patent No. 9,704,310. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Rowe, R. E., & Fiorucci, J. L. (2017). U.S. Patent No. 9,749,823. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

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Venkatesh, G., & Easaw, G. (2015). Measuring the performance of taxi aggregator service supply chain. Samvad, 10, 26-36.