Digital Plumbing: The Infrastructure Behind Rideshare Apps

Ridesharing has quickly evolved into yet another technology that many of us take for granted. Just point, click and enter a few details to get you on your way quickly, right? Not quite. Rideshare apps interact with numerous other technologies and databases, all connected by networks that run on digital infrastructure.

Believe it or not, ridesharing—in a more rudimentary form—existed as far back as World War I, when the US government required people to carpool to conserve rubber for the war. However, it wasn’t until the 1970s that carpooling became commonplace, due to record-high gas prices resulting from the oil crisis.

One important precursor to the modern ridesharing industry came in 2002, when the United States Patent and Trademark Office awarded Sunil Paul a patent for a computer-implemented method to determine an efficient transportation route. Three ridesharing companies—Lyft, Sidecar (co-founded by Sunil Paul) and Uber—entered the market between 2010 and 2012, further evolving the concept.

In 2013, the California Public Utilities Commission created a new category specifically for ridesharing companies, known as transportation network companies (TNCs).

Ridesharing has continued to evolve, improving the consumer and driver experience. It’s now a mainstay of today’s economy. Let’s look at the hidden infrastructure that runs rideshare apps in the latest blog of our Digital Plumbing series.

Behind the scenes of ridesharing

Scheduling a pickup with a rideshare app initiates a series of steps that must be completed as fast as possible. Digital infrastructure is the connective tissue that enables communication between the rider’s and driver’s devices, as well as connections to and from software applications on servers in multiple locations, APIs (which enable software applications to communicate with each other) and databases.

Low-latency connectivity is crucial for ensuring a seamless user experience that includes connecting the rideshare app with a database of rates and drivers, enabling drivers to accept rides and setting up payment options. Rideshare companies need to position their infrastructure in edge locations close to their users—riders and drivers—to effectively pass data to and from the various devices, applications and databases that will, together, create the rideshare quote. This quote will include available drivers, pickup and drop-off times, and payment options.

There are many components involved in enabling a rideshare app, as shown below.

User devices

Rideshare apps are accessible on smartphones, other mobile devices and laptop computers.

Software applications

Rideshare software enables multiple types of transactions for riders and drivers, including submitting ride requests, providing quotes, locating available drivers, presenting driver ratings, processing payments and communicating via chat or text. The applications share details such as the driver’s name, type of vehicle, pickup time and designated pickup area at airports or other transit centers.

Rideshare applications need to interact with software from multiple providers to integrate services such as navigation and location, payment gateways, cloud communications, user authentication and notifications. APIs enable these software components to communicate and transfer data seamlessly, significantly enhancing app functionality. Some of the most frequently used APIs are:

• Google Maps, which integrates mapping and location services into applications.
• Twilio, which enables communication between users and drivers.
• Stripe, which facilitates payment processing.

The software applications must also support backend server and logic processing, including rider billing, driver payouts, fraud detection, analytics and more. This involves interacting with multiple technology stacks of software applications and tools, as well as storing data and retrieving it from one or more databases.

Networking infrastructure

Nothing happens without the right connectivity. Using physical and virtual connections, rideshare apps can connect through public internet providers, mobile carriers and other service providers to public clouds and private on-premises data centers. Networking infrastructure may include switches, routers, load balancers, firewalls and physical infrastructure comprised of terrestrial and subsea fiber-optic cables. Rideshare companies and service providers in the same data center can exchange data, such as payment details, with one another privately using direct physical cross connects in an internet exchange.

Compute and storage

Rideshare companies require servers with significant compute capacity to manage all aspects of a rideshare reservation and to run the various technology stacks, including applications, data, utilities, DevOps, business tools, and riders. Then there’s ensuring sufficient database storage for the vast number of data points and analytics, including rider history, driver history and availability, location data and pricing matrices.

Data centers

Data centers host the compute, storage and networking infrastructure rideshare companies use to run their apps, store data and connect with customers, drivers and service providers. The APIs they use require multiple types of networking available in data centers to connect software applications that work together to deliver the best possible user experience. Data centers are also where participants in a rideshare ecosystem can discover new partners with whom they can innovate.

How does this all come together?

Once a rider’s flight lands and they open the ridesharing app, it begins sending location data, user metrics and other encrypted data via the internet, using HTTPS, to the APIs of the ridesharing service. The data is processed by a load balancer to pass to the next available firewall layer, ensuring the lowest latency. The API gateway executes the request, using backend services and databases to prepare and send the request to the local driver pool within range of the customer. Fabric services enable virtual dedicated connectivity to the providers that need to be part of the process, including cloud services, payment processing and customer engagement communications. This flow continues for the entirety of the transaction, processing the data needed to map a route, validate the payment and rate the driver.

Digital infrastructure

Service expectations in the rideshare business are exceptionally high, and app providers with the fastest response times will have a competitive advantage. Ensuring a seamless experience requires scalable infrastructure in proximity to users and service providers.

With 270+ high-performance data centers in 76 markets worldwide, Equinix has the global reach that rideshare companies need to deploy flexible digital infrastructure close to users and easily replicate their IT infrastructure in new locations.

Rideshare companies will likely find that many of the service providers they connect with via APIs also have deployments at Equinix, enabling those APIs to run even faster because of the close proximity. It’s simple to set up digital infrastructure, with Cross Connects to an Equinix cabinet or cage, or with Equinix Fabric®, which provides private interconnection. The low-latency API connectivity is traversed as the shortest path to its destination, thanks to an internet exchange that advertises the fastest route based on the customer and destination locations. This allows rideshare companies to reach all the major cloud providers via our industry-leading portfolio of cloud on-ramps.

In addition, our rich digital ecosystem of cloud and network service providers, technology companies and other industry partners drives greater business value as participants connect to exchange complementary services, such as payment services and CPaaS (Cloud Platform as a Service communications), with 3000+ other providers.

Learn more about the opportunities that edge computing presents: Read our white paper Where edge meets AI opportunity.

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