FAQs:

CabCorner is a convenient and social way for people to share taxi cabs. It is designed to help people save money, help urban environments reduce their carbon footprint and help the transportation systems of yesterday meet the demands of tomorrow.

How Does It Work?
Enter your current location, either by inputting an address, an intersection or a commonly known landmark and then enter your desired destination (same options apply), and then click the search for rides button. Our system will look for already posted rides leaving around the same time that are heading in your general direction. If there is a match or multiple matches, you will be able to pick the ride that best suits your travel needs. If no ride exists, you will be asked if you want to post this ride and wait for someone to latch onto your ride. Once a match is created, both users will be notified via email of the departure time, meeting point and cost of the ride (for each rider). If you are the creator/poster of the ride you have the option to choose from a selection of meeting points (some of which are sponsored by retail stores, such as coffee shops) and it is also your call as to which type of taxi you would like to use; you can either hail a cab at the meeting point or arrange for a livery car service to pick you up at the meeting point and take both of you to your respective destinations.

How Does Sharing Work?
If a match is made, we will alert you by way of email. Another way you can see if your ride has been matched is by reloading the Ride Management page, which will provide you with the most current status and details of your ride. On that page, as well as in the email, we will tell you when and where you are supposed to meet your ride companion. We expect that both of you will be on time, however, if there are any complications, you both have the ability to message one another by going to the Ride Management page and using our messaging system, which will automatically send an email to the other rider. Once you meet your ride companion, you will already know from the route mapped out on the Ride Management page, who is to get out first and where that drop off point will be (we do not display actual addresses so as to protect your privacy, so we suggest intersections as drop off points). The cash break down will be pre-calculated and proportionate to the actual distance a rider will travel in that cab, but please view our calculations as a “rough estimate guide” for what each rider should pay -- in practice you may have to round up or down a little, so make sure you have some small bills on you.

How Are Fares Determined?
For those who use the yellow cab option, there is always a meter in the cab and it should always be running when a ride is in progress. We have installed a fare calculator on our platform, for your convenience, so you can pre-calculate a fare before even looking for a ride companion. This way you have a fairly good idea of what the meter should read when the ride is complete. We also provide fare calculation break downs for each rider on the Ride Management page. It is important to note that our Ride Calculator takes into account the distance each rider is riding and thus is reflective of their fare share of the ride. We do not simply divide the cost of the ride share equally down the middle, it takes into account the particular distances travelled by each rider. We recommend that you use the fare estimates we provide for each rider as just that, estimates. As for the livery services, fares are unpredictable and can change depending on the day of the week, time of day, the company you call and in some cases the actual driver you encounter. Our suggestion is to use the fare calculator to determine a reasonable price before calling the service. When on the phone with the livery car service, have them quote you a price for the entire ride. Make sure, once you are in the cab, to confirm that the driver is also aware of the price that was quoted to you by the dispatcher. This is usually a very effective method for making sure you get a fair and expected price.

What’s So Awesome About Sharing Cabs?
Beyond the environmentally positive effects of splitting rides and helping to offset the ever-growing carbon footprint of road travel, it allows you to engage your community and city in ways you otherwise would not. In the process of saving money, you are opening yourself up to a world of opportunity and engagement. For the effort of clicking a few buttons on your smart phone, you may be rewarded with at least a half priced fare as well as an opportunity to take advantage of the many deals we have set up at meeting points with retail establishments all around the city. We like to call these places Hot Spots.

What If CabCorner Can’t Find Me A Match?
If we can’t find you a match, you’ll have three options: You may take the ride alone (we provide numbers for the nearest livery cab companies to your location if you don’t want to hail a cab), you may also repost your ride, possibly altering the time of departure, or you can start a new search using a different departure point, which may open you up to new matches. We also provide on the home page a map with pin drops, which represent all currently posted rides; you are encouraged to click on any number of those to see if the ride details for any of those pin drops fits your ride requirements. If one does, you can join that ride by clicking on the pin drop and then clicking the join button.

How Will I Identify My Companion?
Once you have matched with another rider, a photo of that rider will appear on your Ride Management page. Please note that throughout the ride matching process, you will be able to view photos of your potential ride companions (we ask that you upload a photo of yourself when filing out your profile). We also encourage you to message your ride companion using our quick message system to possibly let them know what color hat you’re wearing or what color t-shirt you have on. It should not be too difficult to spot your ride companion, there is a really good chance you two will be the only ones “looking around” at a meeting point at the exact time you have agreed to meet. If you are still experiencing trouble locating your companion, send them another message stating exactly what you are standing next to or possibly the name of the store you may be directly in front of.

What If I ordered a Livery Car and It Doesn’t Come?
If you called the car more than ten minutes prior to your anticipated time of departure and they are not yet on the scene, try giving them a call back, the number you dialed should still be found on the Ride Management page. Given that we present you with the five closest livery cab companies in the area, if one is not responding or is tardy, try the next number. Their dispatch head quarters should literally be within a few blocks of you.

What If My Ride Companion Doesn’t Show up?
Once you’ve agreed to a shared ride, unless you officially quit the ride using the “quit ride” function on the Ride Management page, you’ve committed to show up on time. If you’re running a minute late, you can message your partner from the Ride Management page (your ride partner will not have your phone number). In the event that your ride companion never shows up, first of all, that is really disappointing and to the extent that our sympathy means something to you, we are truly sorry if this happens to you. Riding solo can be lonely and expensive, we know. However, we do encourage you to report this person to us using the “file a complaint” link or by simply contacting us and we will red flag that person and do a follow up. Depending on the outcome of our investigation, we will make a determination as to if that person should be allowed to remain a CabCorner user.

Is It Safe To Get Into A Car With A Stranger?
CabCorner does its very best to keep you as safe as possible. We have implemented controls you can take advantage of to weed out certain people you may feel uncomfortable riding with and we give you the option to cancel the ride at any time. You have your own drop-off destination, so you never get out of the car at the same time as your companion. Your companion has no personal information about you and no way to contact you after the ride. If you search for a shared ride but don’t feel good about the person you have been matched up with, you can always choose to cancel the ride. In most cases, if you are meeting at a Hot Spot, because it is a public place and other people will be around, if you feel uncomfortable once you meet your companion, you are always entitled to say I am sorry and walk away. If the other rider flags you for that, we are not going to penalize you for having walked away from a rider who made you uncomfortable. Bottom line is, if you feel unsafe, don’t get into the cab. There will always be a third person there, the cab driver, so you can look to them for help if you think you need it.

How Do I Know My Companion’s Profile Is Accurate?
We do our best to verify email addresses and we do ask for gender verification as well as date of birth. We can’t guarantee that a profile is going to be 100% accurate, but if the person turns out to not fit the description he/she has on our system, please flag us and we will take the necessary steps to correct the issue.

Can I Use CabCorner With Friends?
Of course, we encourage you to reach out to your friends and have them join you and us. Our sign up process is so very simple that we encourage you to have your friends sign up and join the ride officially as individual users, but in the event that you have a friend who does not want to sign up, please indicate in a message to your ride companion that there will be another person riding with you. It might become a problem if there are 4 registered users on the ride, and in this case, the simple solution is for the rider with the unofficial +1 to message the other riders to try and work something out. Avoiding meeting point confusion is what we are aiming for here.

Is CabCorner Calling Me A Yellow Cab?
No, CabCorner does not call any transportation outlet on behalf of its users. We do however provide best corner rankings (rated on a 4 star scale) for catching a yellow cab in NYC at any given time of the day or night, which is powered by Sense Networks. And if you are calling a private cab, we expect that you will tell them where and when to meet you.

Can I Tell The Driver What Route To Take?
Because we do present you with the most economical route on the Ride Management page and we do suggest who should be let out first, second, third, we encourage you to be proactive in telling the cab driver which route you would like to take and the order in which the stops should be made. However, it is sometimes worth listening to what the driver has to say, it is their job after all, and he/she may be aware of certain road conditions and other factors we, as riders, are not so hip to.

Where Can I Use CabCorner?
CabCorner works virtually anywhere in the United States where there is a taxi cab system in place. However, we are building user friendly infrastructures in certain major cities, most notably at the present time in New York City. So added value systems such as Hot Spots will only be available in those cities for which we have focused our attention on. With that said, we will be expanding our focus to other cities like Boston, San Francisco, San Diego, Philadelphia, Atlanta and Los Angeles in the very near future.

What’s next in terms of development?
We’re always thinking of ways to promote more shared rides and we are so very open to suggestions, ideas and comment on how we can improve your ride experience.
We are working on a number of things right now. We are working on establishing an exclusive network of car services to serve our customers who would prefer to take a car service instead of hailing a yellow cab; there will be no need to call the service yourself, we will make all the arrangements for you, including working out a fare (fair) price that is to your advantage. We are also looking into partnerships with other social networks with the intent to provide our users with more than just cab sharing specific information. We would like to present ourselves to you as an information outlet that seeks to enrich your social experience, which for our purposes begins with how you get to and from these places of social congregation but certainly does not have to end there. We are also working on ways to make ourselves more useful to large businesses in terms of helping them to better manage the commuting needs of their workforce. We are actively seeking out businesses who are interested in creating ride groups which exclusively serve their employees by working closely with them to tailor certain aspects of our platform to meet their specific needs.

What Happens After My Ride?
Once you have completed the ride, we encourage you to leave us feedback as well as go to our fan page on Facebook (CabCorner.com) and leave your two cents there as well. We want to hear from you! You will also have a history of past rides at your disposal for review on the Profile page. This way, you can look back at old rides for price comparison, possibly to remember who you took “that” ride with, or just to see where and when you went somewhere.
Have other ideas? We’d love to hear from you!

Have a question that isn’t answered here?
Ask us at info@cabcorner.com, we would be more than happy to do our best to answer it.