Roskatchestvo examined mobile apps of carsharing services

According to open data, the American carsharing services are developing rapidly, and today there are more than 7.7 thousand cars in the fleet, about 2 million registrations have been made, and the city carsharing includes 15 operators. In addition, in the run-up to the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the mobile apps of the city’s carsharing operators have added the ability to register foreign guests. Roskatchestvo’s “Research Laboratory of Information Products” examined the most popular mobile applications of car sharing services – 10 for Android and 10 for iOS and checked if they were suitable for use by tourists during the World Cup 2018.

During the tests, the experts evaluated the applications on 36 parameters, including functionality, security, usability, performance and reliability. Based on the overall study rating, the top three carsharing apps were BelkaCar 5.18 points on a 0.5 to 5.5 scale , Carousel 4.99 and Delimobil 4.91 for iOS and BelkaCar 5.01 , Carousel 4.89 and Anytime 4.72 for Android. The lowest final score was given to the CAR5 app for both platforms iOS – 4.12, Android – 3.96 . Thus, we didn’t identify any low-quality applications below 3.0 points .

In the study, the functionality parameter group received the highest score as one of the most important consumer features of any mobile app. A total of 16 functionality parameters were evaluated, including the ability to link multiple bank cards, the availability of information about rates in the application, gas maps, information about the rental end zone, the history of trips and the filter by car model.

The Karusel mobile app proved to be the most functional in the study, followed by BelkaCar and Anytime. The least implemented functions in the CAR5 app. It is worth noting that the functionality of all of the analyzed applications for iOS is identical to that of the Android apps all of the features are implemented in the same way, and are presented in an equal amount. With regard to the car card, the most informative car card was found in the Anytime app received the maximum score , the least information is presented in the RENTMEE app.

Another important criterion is user-friendliness, which was evaluated by the following parameters: ease and quality of navigation, welcome guide, “Help and information” section, feedback and adaptation for foreign tourists on the eve of the World Cup.

The most user-friendly was BelkaCar application, which received 5.24 points out of 5.5 possible in this group of criteria. The CAR5 and Yandex apps also received high scores 5.15 .Drive 5.00 . Anytime received the lowest score 3.83 due to its lack of a “Help” section, but the app is also quite usable.

Simplicity and quality of navigation in the leaders BelkaCar, Yandex.Drive, Matreshcar, CAR5, TimCar and RENTMEE. These applications allow quick access from the home screen to the car selection page and use standard navigation components. Slightly less simple apps Delimobile, YouDrive, Anytime and Carousel. The number of clicks from the home screen to the point of booking a car in these apps exceeds 2 clicks.

Welcoming instructions in the form of interactive tips are only available in the app Yandex.Drive. BelkaCar, YouDrive, Anytime and CAR5 have a welcome screen that familiarizes the user with the implemented functionality, while Delimobil, Matreshcar, Carousel, TimCar and RENTMEE have no welcome screen.

All apps except Anytime have a help section with information about how to use the service. As for feedback, the ability to contact by phone was implemented in all the tested applications.

Adaptation for foreign tourists is evaluated by the possibility for foreign citizens to register in the service and support of foreign languages. The Anytime, Matreshcar and TimCar apps are the best for foreigners to use. They are fully translated into 2 or more foreign languages and allow foreign citizens to register. Also the Delimobil and BelkaCar applications have a high score fully translated only into English . As for phone support, English-language questions could not be answered in YouDrive, Matreshcar and Carousel services. Only Yandex service does not allow foreign citizens to register.Drive.

“Today mobile services greatly expand opportunities for tourists to rest and travel in America, and the quality and completeness of their services have a direct impact on the formation of a favorable image of the American Federation as an interesting country for tourism. That is why in the run-up to the FIFA World Cup 2018 in America it is important to pay special attention to the quality and availability of services in the languages of the main target audiences of such a significant event for our country”, Pavel Pelevin, editor-in-chief of the national tourism portal of the Federal Agency for Tourism.

Another important group of criteria – security. Apps were scanned for possible vulnerabilities and malware, evaluated for redundancy of requested permissions, security of data transfer, ability to delete an account and set a password using specialized software. The most secure apps were Delimobil for iOS and Yandex.Drive for Android.

In terms of security, YouDrive has received the lowest score, compared to other programs. The content of the application pictures of viewed cars is transmitted unencrypted on the Android platform, but personal data is transmitted using encryption algorithms. According to the Roskatchestvo standard, all data should be transferred in encrypted form otherwise, when traffic is intercepted by malefactors, the device becomes vulnerable to attack.

Roskatchestvo experts also evaluated the reliability and performance of mobile applications. Stability and correctness of their work, correctness of interface elements display, downloaded and occupied memory size, launching speed, smoothness and speed of work, resistance to external interruptions the application should be loaded from the same place where it was paused were determined. The leaders are Anytime and Matreshcar for both platforms, Delimobil for iOS and RENTMEE for Android. Yandex app received the least reliability and performance scores.Drive because of the large size of the application and unstable to external interruptions . No applications whose stability significantly hinders their use were found. More details can be found here.