Arjun's Driver Board

I search my driver list to see who is free right now, so that when a hotel rings at half past seven I can name a man in ten seconds.

Who this is for

Arjun Verma runs nineteen cars out of a one-room office behind Vijay Nagar in Indore. Most of his drivers he has known for years. Between 7.30 and 9 in the morning, the hotels near the ring road ring him one after another for airport drops, 900 rupees a run. That is the hour his whole month is decided in. By ten o'clock he is drinking tea and nothing is urgent again until the next morning.

How the job is done today

There is a WhatsApp group with all nineteen drivers in it. They are supposed to type free when they drop a passenger. Some do, some forget, and by 8.15 the messages have scrolled past anything useful. So Arjun calls. First Suresh, who is on the Rau road with a family. Then Imran, who does not pick up. Then Deepak, who is free but sitting in Mhow and cannot reach the hotel in fifteen minutes. Three calls, ninety seconds gone, and the hotel manager is still holding the line. There is also a notebook with a page for each day, but he writes in it after nine, once it no longer matters.

The screens, in order

1. Who is free — Opens straight to the drivers who are free right now, biggest name at the top, so Arjun can read it while the phone is at his ear.
2. Search — Lets him type two letters of a name or an area and land on the right man without scrolling.
3. Driver card — Shows one driver's number, his car and plate, and one button to ring him.
4. Send him out — Marks a driver busy and asks only one thing, roughly when he will be free again.
5. My drivers — Where Arjun adds a new man or corrects a number, done in the afternoon when there is time.

What it keeps track of

• Drivers — name, phone number, which car and plate, which side of town he usually starts from, free or busy, free again by around what time
• Runs — which driver, who called it in, pick-up point, drop point, what time he left, when he said he would be free
• Callers — hotel or office name, the person who rings, their number, where their guests are usually picked up from

The one decision that matters

Who marks a driver free, the driver or Arjun. Letting drivers update themselves sounds fairer and saves Arjun the tapping. It will not survive the hour. At 8 in the morning his men are driving, parking, or arguing with a guest about luggage, and a status nobody updates is worse than no status at all because Arjun will start trusting it. So Arjun taps, and only Arjun. He is the one sitting still with a phone in his hand. To stop the board going stale, a driver marked busy until 8.40 moves back to the free list by himself at 8.40, and Arjun confirms by calling. The board is his memory, not a report from the field.

What to leave out of the first version

No live location on a map, no fares, no payments, no logins for the drivers. Arjun is not trying to watch his men, and the money already works fine in the notebook and on UPI. Tracking nineteen cars on a map would give him one more thing to stare at during the exact ninety seconds he has none to spare. The first version answers one question only, who can I ring right now.

How you would know it worked

On a Tuesday morning the hotel rings, and Arjun names a driver and is dialling him before the manager finishes saying the room number. He does not ring a single man who already has a passenger in the car. By nine he has not opened WhatsApp once.

Build it

Paste this in and let it run.

I run nineteen taxis in Indore and I need something on my phone that shows me which of my drivers is free at this exact moment, because between half past seven and nine in the morning the hotels keep ringing and I am wasting calls on men who are already carrying someone. When I open it I want to see only the free drivers, names big enough to read while the phone is at my ear, and I want to type two letters of a name or an area to find someone. Tapping a driver should show his number, his car and plate, and a button to call him. When I send him out I mark him busy and say roughly when he will be free, and he should come back to the free list on his own at that time. I add and edit the drivers myself. No maps, no fares.