Editor’s note: Today's blog features Erdem Batsaikhan, CTO and Co-Founder, UBCab. Erdem shares how UBCab, a leading Mongolian technology company, achieved live, traffic-aware routing that improved dispatch efficiency, significantly reducing waiting times for riders with Google Maps Platform.
Overcoming extreme winter weather challenges with traffic-aware routing
Here in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, we live in the world’s coldest capital city. Winter temperatures regularly drop to minus 40 degrees Celsius. When booking a ride in that kind of freezing weather, people can't afford to stand outside waiting — they need to know that their car will arrive on time. That's why over 80% of Mongolia’s adult population depends on us at UBCab. With the help of Google Maps Platform, we make sure our 1.8 million customers aren’t left standing in the cold.
Before we implemented Google Maps Platform Mobility services, however, we faced technical limits with our automated driver matching system, which relied on straight-line distance calculations to find nearby drivers. This calculation didn’t account for actual road layouts or heavy traffic, meaning the system sometimes assigned drivers who were close on a map but were actually a long drive away. This led to customers having to wait longer, drivers rejecting trips, and fluctuating estimated times of arrival (ETAs) that could lead to customer complaints. Our drivers also had to switch between the UBCab app and external navigation apps to check traffic conditions and plan their routes.
To solve these routing challenges and give riders predictable ETAs, we turned to Google Maps Platform Mobility services. This enabled us to match riders with the nearest driver based on real driving time, giving our riders dependable arrival times and our drivers much better routes.
Erdem Batsaikhan, CTO and Co-Founder, UBCab
Improving driver and rider experiences with Google Maps Platform Mobility services
Working alongside Google Cloud partner Master Concept, we integrated Mobility services directly into our core dispatch engine. Using Compute Routes within the Routes API, we replaced straight-line matching with live, traffic-aware routing to give us predictable arrival times. The API evaluates real-time traffic data and road layouts to calculate the actual driving duration before assigning a ride. This ensures our drivers receive trip requests they can reach quickly, while our riders receive accurate ETAs and fair price estimates based on real-time road conditions.
With the routing optimized, we wanted to further refine the experience for our drivers. Previously, they had to check external apps for directions, meaning they had to leave the driver app. We used the Navigation SDK to bring turn-by-turn guidance directly into our own app, so drivers no longer had to switch between multiple applications while navigating the city. To make the feature fully accessible, we custom-developed Mongolian voice guidance for the SDK, helping newly registered drivers navigate unfamiliar urban routes safely while keeping their eyes on the road.
Even with optimized routes and turn-by-turn navigation, our drivers still need a precise destination. Because parts of Ulaanbaatar lack formal or consistent street addresses, it’s not always possible to navigate to a traditional street name. To ensure our drivers don't get lost, we overlaid our own proprietary addressing system onto the Google Maps base map. Google Maps Platform provides the foundational roads, live traffic, and routing. When we combine that with our own local knowledge, our drivers can pinpoint the exact pickup location every time.
Scaling nationwide services and international experiences with Google Maps Platform
Adopting Google Maps Platform Mobility services has significantly improved our operations. Driver trip acceptance rates are up by 15%, while our average pickup times have fallen by one minute — a 25% reduction that saves Mongolian riders a collective 540 hours of waiting time every month. Thanks to these improvements, customer complaints about prices and arrival times have dropped by 30% to 40%, reducing the amount of time our call center team spends on calls.
Building on this success, we plan to extend Mobility services to our food delivery and express package delivery lines. We're also preparing to implement advanced Google Maps Platform capabilities, such as Grounding with Google Maps for camera-based positioning, 3D mapping, and visual street name recognition. These tools will help the 1 million international tourists visiting Mongolia each year to easily identify pickup points and navigate our cities without language barriers. Beyond maps, UBCab is also planning to expand its Google collaboration by integrating Gemini Enterprise, leveraging generative AI to automate dispatch workflows and predict operational disruptions across our growing fleet.
Integrating Mobility services has completely transformed our dispatch efficiency. As we expand our package delivery offering and adopt visual positioning for international tourists, Google Maps Platform gives us the technology we need to deliver fast, modern services to every city and town in Mongolia.
