How technology is helping cab drivers?

A year or two ago taxi aggregators started operations in Pune. Fierce competition among taxi companies resulted in a price war which meant cool discounts for the customers. (Now, they are reduced !)

I decided to take advantage of the situation and booked a cab using a mobile application. The cab arrived as expected and I was on my way. It was that simple!

In a few minutes, I was having a casual chat with the driver. One of the first questions I asked was “Since when are you working with this organization?”. Pat came the reply “15 days!” Curiosity led to other questions like “How is your experience with this organization?” and  “What you were doing before this?”.

I learned that previously his cab was listed as a taxi vendor who had contracted it to an IT company. He would pick and drop employees of that IT company as per the said contract.

“So, which one do you think is better? Cab aggregator or listing with a vendor?”

“Obviously, the cab aggregator.”

Then he went on to tell me how he had to work with the vendor.

Following were the reasons he hated vendor operations -

1. Payment was made ‘by cheque’ and after the ‘end of the month’.
2. The vendor took a commission from the invoice that was generated.
3. Arrival time at the IT company was pre-decided and timestamped! Delay due to employees coming late at pick up points stressed him out on a daily basis.
4. The vendor had no dignity of labor or any respect towards drivers / cabs that were listed with the vendor’s agency.
5. Daily travel route was decided by the travel desk of the IT company. This frequently resulted in unnecessarily longer routes to pick / drop employees.

On the other hand, working with this cab aggregator was turning out to be a fantastic experience due to the reasons - !

1. If a customer pays ‘in cash’, the money goes directly into his pocket.
2. If a customer pays using ‘online wallet’ from the application, it gets credited to his bank account (automatically) the very next day and he get a text message for the same.
3. There are no deadlines to reach the pickup point. The customer is aware of his position and ETA (estimated time of arrival), thanks to the ‘track my cab’ option which gives real time information.
4. He is the owner of his own business.
5. Google Maps is installed on the device available in his cab which makes it easy to find optimum routes.

From the above conversation, I realized that technology had made life easier for thousands of cab drivers in India.

Before having a conversation with him I was happy thinking about how technology had helped me. I was enjoying a cab ride that was booked using a mobile application on my smartphone. Paying cab charges did not even require ‘the touch of a button’ since the ‘online wallet’ from the application automatically paid when there was enough balance.

Moreover, I received a message about cab details / payments made and all the other relevant updates. I even received an invoice by email. I was having this privilege due to the technology offered by the cab company.

At the same time, this same technology was helping cab drivers to earn their daily bread and butter. Since this format is working great for cab drivers they are elated.

I thought to myself “Technology has turned out to be highly successful”.

As a technologist myself, I wondered how technological pieces worked together in harmony and brought about a win-win situation for everybody.

• An application that worked seamlessly on iOS / Android / Windows platforms for both customers as well as drivers.
• A website which allowed for registration of user accounts
• Messages that were sent to drivers / customers
• Secured Bank transactions for drivers / customers. Moreover, there may be a finance module at company end which will be taking care of all transactions.
• Google Map used to show routes as well as the location of drivers and customers.

Ford Car, Vanilla ice-cream & QA

This is a small story about a ford car and vanilla ice-cream. At the end, we will see how this correlate with QA.

 This is the second time I have written you, and I don't blame you for not answering me because I kind of sounded crazy, but it is a fact that we have a tradition in our family of ice cream for dessert after dinner each night. But the kind of ice cream varies so, every night after we've eaten, the whole family votes on which kind of ice cream we should have and I drive down to the store to get it. 

 It's also a fact that I recently purchased a new Pontiac and since then my trips to the store have created a problem. You see every time I buy vanilla ice cream when I start back from the store my car won't start. If I get any other kind of ice cream, the car starts just fine.

I want you to know I'm serious about this question, no matter how silly it sounds: 'What is there about a Pontiac that makes it not start when I get vanilla ice cream, and easy to start whenever I get any other kind?'" 

 The Pontiac President was understandably skeptical about the letter but sent an engineer to check it out anyway. The latter was surprised to be greeted by a successful, obviously well-educated man in a fine neighborhood. He had arranged to meet the man just after dinner time, so the two hopped into the car and drove to the ice cream store. It was vanilla ice cream that night and, sure enough, after they came back to the car, it wouldn't start. 

 The engineer returned for three more nights. The first night, the man got chocolate. The car started. The second night, he got strawberry. The car started. The third night he ordered vanilla. The car failed to start. 

 Now the engineer, being a logical man, refused to believe that this man's car was allergic to vanilla ice cream. He arranged, therefore, to continue his visits for as long as it took to solve the problem. And toward this end he began to take notes: he jotted down all sorts of data, time of day, type of gas used, time to drive back and forth, etc. In a short time, he had a clue: The man took less time to buy vanilla than any other flavor. Why? The answer was in the layout of the store. 

 Vanilla, being the most popular flavor, was in a separate case at the front of the store for quick pickup. All the other flavors were kept in the back of the store at a different counter where it took considerably longer to find the flavor and get checked out. Now the question for the engineer was why the car wouldn't start when it took less time. 

 Once time became the problem — not the vanilla ice cream — the engineer quickly came up with the answer: vapor lock. It was happening every night, but the extra time taken to get the other flavors allowed the engine to cool down sufficiently to start. When the man got vanilla, the engine was still too hot for the vapor lock to dissipate. 

 Takeaways -

• While testing we should understand the issue faced.
• Write down each and every step performed and try to reproduce it.
• We should be patient while exploring the issue.
• We should consider environmental factors associated with the issue.
• Thinking out of the box can be beneficial.
• This can be kept in mind by the developer while debugging the issue.

Story source - the Internet

"Kyu hai ? " (QA)

This incident happened on the annual day of my organization. The host called QA team to come forward for an event.While calling he said , QA and pronounced as "Kyu hai" 

Ye team kyu hai ? (Why this team exists ?)

After the event, thoughts start coming to my mind. Why does QA require? Can this be a question? There are so many examples available explaining how things failed despite QA. Below is a link to such an article. 

Top 10 Software Blunders of the Last Decade

Well, yes QA is important in every aspect of our life. Though I am related to software field, QA is required for each field and we knowingly or unknowingly perform testing of few things.

Share your experience in comments where you have performed some kind of testing other than software testing, in your personal life.