Handling multiple passengers
The more passengers in a car the more interesting it becomes. Agreements with multiple passengers can be created in swidg. For the moment swidg supports until three passengers. All participants can check the status of the other participants in the app and they can even chat in group for that trip. The driver has most control: He/she can decide to allow an extra passenger, can change the time schedule of that day and if the driver cancels the trip then the complete trip will be cancelled. If a passenger cancels an agreement, then the trip continues with the remaining passengers.
The driver can search for an additional passenger by pressing the + sign on an existing agreement. The matches list is reduced to only potential passengers that can be picked up by the driver within the detour constraint, which is set in the driver’s matching settings.
When an extra passenger is selected, the trip will be rearranged by the logical pick-up order of the passengers with a re-estimation of the time schedule. Please note that if the time schedule has been modified manually, then these modifications are now overwritten because of the extra passenger.
The chat function will become a group chat in which all participants can see what others post.
If a potential match is already involved as driver in another agreement, but the driver still has an empty seat, then this driver will be listed in your matches list with a badge indicating how many passengers are already in the agreement. You can request to be also passenger in that agreement. The driver can then accept your request.
When inviting an extra passenger, if the trip was already confirmed (=green) then it will become pending (=orange) again. To check why an agreement is still pending, you can swipe the trip agenda to left or push the list icon. This will show you the acceptance status of the different participants in an agreement.
Future developments
Currently passengers are added one by one. We will make it easier to configure a new trip with multiple passengers added in one screen and in one go.
The limitation of three passenger seats will be extended. Especially die-hard carpoolers are organized in small groups and use even vans to come to work.
Currently the driver cannot undo an invitation of a passenger. This can result in the situation that one of multiple passengers did not confirm and hence keep the agreement in pending. This situation will be tackled in the next sprint.