Thryft | Devpost

Inspiration

We were inspired to make Thryft after noticing that surge pricing for app-based transportation like Lyft was sometimes arbitrary. After doing some research, we learned that sometimes the surge would fluctuate and the price multiplier/price estimate would change drastically when you walk a short distance away from your original location and request a ride. We wanted to make Thryft to save consumers money on Lyft, as well as get more people to use Lyft by decreasing or even negating the extra money they would have to pay for “prime-time”.

What it does

Thryft is a mobile app that uses the Lyft API and Google Maps API to find the best location for people to request Lyfts in their general vicinity. It capitalizes on price inefficiencies, a common phenomenon in shared economy products. When someone uses the app, they enter in their starting location and their destination, as well as how much they’re willing to walk to save money. Thryft then shows the best location for them to walk to in order to get the cheapest price for their Lyft.

How I built it

We built this using Ionic, a mobile app framework that uses HTML5 and AngularJS. We also integrated Google Maps API and Lyft API to create the map and location points for the user.