Matching progress and summary

When a passenger requests a ride, matching runs in the background and can take a few seconds. During the run, ioki Platform sends the passenger a series of short progress messages. If the search ends without an offer, the passenger then sees a closing message that explains the outcome. All of these messages appear in the passenger’s language.

Progress messages

While matching is in flight, ioki Platform publishes a short status message for each stage of the matching algorithm it works through. These messages give the passenger a sense that the search is actively progressing. Representative examples, quoted from the shipped text, include:

• “Preparing your search…”
• “Setting up the search space and parameters…”
• “Checking requested route and current traffic…”
• “Exploring different ride combinations…”
• “Scoring and selecting the best solutions…”

The passenger sees whichever messages match the stages the run actually goes through, in the order they occur.

Closing message when no ride is offered

When a search ends without an offer, ioki Platform replaces the progress messages with a single closing message that explains why no ride could be offered. When the search succeeds, the passenger sees the ride offer itself, not a closing message.

The closing message depends on the outcome of the run.

• No vehicle was available. “We looked for rides between start and end and evaluated N route combinations, but couldn’t find suitable results. Please try again a little later.” A separate message is shown when there was no vehicle at the requested time at all: “You requested a ride for time, but no vehicle was available at that time. Please try a different time.”
• No route was found. “We couldn’t find a suitable route for this request. Please try a different pick-up or drop-off location.” This appears when a workable route between the requested pick-up and drop-off points could not be determined.
• Public transport is preferred. “We can’t offer you a ride for this request because public transport is available on this route.” This appears when a suitable public transport connection makes an on-demand ride unnecessary on the requested route.
• The request is no longer valid. “This request is no longer valid. Please make a new one.”

Detailed and short variants

For the no-vehicle-available outcome, the message comes in two variants:

• When enough route combinations were analyzed, the detailed variant is shown. It names the time span that was searched and the number of route combinations that were evaluated.
• When fewer combinations were analyzed, a short variant is shown. It still names the searched time span but leaves out the count of route combinations.

Why it matters

When no ride can be offered, the closing message tells the passenger how wide the search already was. The time span it names reflects how far around the requested time ioki Platform looked, which follows from the Maximum time deviation to request setting in the matching configuration. Because the search already covered that whole span, retrying with a slightly different time inside the same span will not change the result.

This is closely tied to the extended search space, where ioki Platform keeps exploring additional route combinations within a single ride search rather than asking the passenger to start over.