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Adding stops to a trip instead of booking twice

Up to eight stops, priced into the same quote, so nobody negotiates a detour mid-journey.

By Adwoa Serwaa Nyarko, Product, Topsy · · 2 min read

Real journeys are rarely a straight line between two points. You collect a colleague. You drop a parcel at your sister's. You stop at the pharmacy before going home. The classic way to handle this is to agree a fare, then ask the driver mid-trip for a favour, and then have an uncomfortable conversation about what the favour is worth.

A Topsy trip takes up to eight stops, and every one of them is part of the quote before you book.

Why pricing it up front changes the dynamic

When the stop is in the quote, there is nothing to negotiate. The driver accepted a job that included it. The route was measured through it. The fare already reflects it. Nobody is doing anybody a favour, which means nobody is owed one.

This is better for the driver too. A detour agreed at the roadside is unpaid work with a social obligation attached. A stop in the booking is simply the job.

How to add them

On the booking form, open the trip details and add a stop. Each stop takes an address picked from the suggestions, so it carries real coordinates, and it appears as a numbered pin on the map once you have a quote. You can drag those pins in the same way as the pickup point if the geocoded position is not quite where a car can stop.

Order matters: the stops are visited in the order you list them, and the route is measured that way.

When to use a stop and when to book separately

Use a stop when the vehicle is waiting briefly and the same passengers continue. Collecting someone, dropping something off, a short errand.

Book separately when there is a real gap in time. If you are stopping somewhere for an hour, holding a driver for that hour is expensive and, frankly, a poor use of a car that could be working. A scheduled second trip is almost always cheaper and more reliable.

A note on the fare

Stops add to the fare because they add to the route and to the time. The quote shows the total for the journey as configured, so the way to see what a stop costs is to add it and watch the number. That is a more honest answer than a published per-stop figure, because the real cost depends on how far out of the way it takes you.

Put it into practice.

Every idea on this blog starts the same way: two points and a price you see before you commit.

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