SMU students developing Grab a Cab mobile app

“I wish I could just text a cab to come get us,” Trent Mervine said to Ryan Arndt during their freshman year in Boaz residence hall.

As many SMU students know, the entire process of taking cabs is rather irritating.

Between having to step out of your current location into a quieter atmosphere, waiting on hold for what seems like an eternity, repeating your address multiple times until the receiver on the other end actually gets it correct; then, sitting, wondering how much longer it will be until the cab arrives.

And that’s just the process of ordering your cab. Not to mention once you’ve finally reached your desired location and six people anxiously attempt to pay, it usually results in a single person stuck with the entire cab fare on their credit card because no one carries cash.

Text a cab: an idea that seems so simple yet doesn’t quite exist. With that, Mervine and Arndt immediately knew this was an opportunity to capitalize. With three other friends, they are now pursuing development of a mobile app called Grab a Cab.

The innovative friends, both sophomores now, teamed up with fellow SMU students Christopher Kraemer, sophomore; Alex Perry, sophomore; and Faiz Sayed, junior.

“The first week we were trying to figure out how to turn ‘text a cab’ into something cool,” Mervine said. “Then we thought it would be better if it was a mobile app, so we came up with Grab A Cab.”...