One Island app brings Uber style taxis to Island

One Island offers information on buses, flights, ferries and links to local news

A new app has launched on the Island that looks to change the way taxis operate by incorporating an Uber style experience for customers. 

The app, One Island, also offers bus information, updates on the ferries and flights and links to local news stories. 

Darren Barklie, one of its founders, said the idea came from seeing how fragmented digital life is on the Island, as well as a reliance on print material.

He said: "As a long-time developer I thought that I could work to bring all that content together and make it a lot more consumable for the general public."

Darren told Manx Radio that as one of the group behind One Island is a taxi driver, the idea formed to create an app based system for taxis, allowing customers to book, track and pay for their taxi in a similar way to Uber operates in the UK. 

He added: "We're working with ply for hire and private hire drivers. We've built this app with them, so they've been integral to the whole development process of of this vertical on the app and we've taken their needs and requests and tried to innovate and make it seamless for them as well as the customer."

While initial focus is going on the development of the taxi side of the app, Darren said the group will be looking to grow for One Island to be 'generally useful across the Isle of Man' 

You can find out more about One Island here.