Navigation

A participant gets turn-by-turn directions along the planned ride route while seeing other riders on a shared map.

Who Can Do This

Any participant with yes RSVP status who has tapped Start Ride.

Feature Tiers

Feature	Essential (free, quota exhausted)	Premium (subscriber or free with quota)
Turn-by-turn navigation	✓	✓
Traffic data overlay	✗	✓
See other riders on map	✗ (creator/admin: always ✓)	✓ (if location sharing is on)

The creator and admins can always see all participants on the map regardless of their own tier. Since admins must be subscribers, the only case where this override applies is an Essential-tier creator (free user, quota exhausted). See Access Policy for how ride tier is determined at Start.

How It Works

1. Participant taps Start Ride.
2. The app compares the rider's current position against their selected joining breakpoint and the planned route. See Joining Location Scenarios below.
3. Turn-by-turn directions guide the rider along the pre-planned route from their joining point to the destination.
4. Premium riders see other participants' live positions on the map (subject to each participant's location sharing preference).
5. The rider taps End Ride to close their navigation session. See End Ride.

Joining Location Scenarios

When a participant taps Start Ride, navigation behavior depends on their selected joining breakpoint and their physical position:

Near their joining breakpoint — the app navigates the rider to their joining breakpoint, then continues the route from that point to the destination. Navigation follows the ride's planned route from the joining breakpoint onward; all earlier breakpoints are skipped.

Not near their joining breakpoint — the app recommends the nearest breakpoint to the rider's current position. The rider is shown the suggestion and can confirm or select a different joining point. Once confirmed, navigation proceeds as above from the newly selected breakpoint.

Joining at the destination — valid selection. The app navigates the rider to the destination. There is no further route beyond the destination.

Rider has physically passed their joining breakpoint — an on-screen notification informs the rider they have passed their joining point. Navigation automatically advances to the next breakpoint in the route and guides the rider from their current position.

If the rider never reaches their joining breakpoint before the ride's end time, the session ends automatically with the ride.

Rules

• Navigation is only available during the ride window — from up to 2 hours before the scheduled start time until the scheduled end time.
• The route is fixed as planned. The app does not re-route if a rider deviates from the planned path. An on-screen warning is shown when the rider goes off-route, but the route does not change — the rider must self-correct back to the planned path.
• Only yes participants navigate. A maybe participant is automatically upgraded to yes when they tap Start Ride — no separate confirmation step is required.
• Only one active navigation session per account at a time. Starting on a second device auto-closes the first. See Access Policy.
• When the ride's end time passes, all active navigation sessions end automatically.
• Precise device location permission is required. If denied, Start is blocked. See Access Policy.

Intercom

Navigation includes an optional voice intercom channel. See Intercom.

Failure Cases

• Too early: navigation cannot start more than 2 hours before the scheduled start time.
• Ride ended: navigation cannot start after the ride's end time has passed.
• Wrong RSVP status: participants with no status cannot navigate.
• Location permission denied: precise location access must be granted before Start.
• No active session: if the ride has not started (no participant has tapped Start and the scheduled start time has not yet arrived), the ride is still upcoming and Start is not available outside the 2-hour window.

Status: partially-live. Turn-by-turn GPS navigation, route polyline, and live rider map are built. Missing: Premium/Essential tier restrictions absent (traffic overlay and rider visibility ungated — all users see both); joining-location scenario "not near breakpoint" (suggest nearest) not implemented; "passed breakpoint" auto-advance not implemented; off-route warning not implemented; navigation does not automatically end when the ride's scheduled end time passes.