Augmented reality assisted pickup

A network system, such as a transport management system, uses augmented reality (AR) to identify an approaching vehicle. Responsive to receiving a trip request, a trip management module matches the rider with an available driver and instructs a trip monitoring module to monitor the location of the driver's vehicle as it travels to the pickup location. When the driver's vehicle is within a threshold distance of the pickup location, an AR control module instructs the rider client device to begin a live video stream and instructs an image recognition module to monitor the video stream for the driver's vehicle. Responsive to the driver's vehicle entering the field of view of the camera on the rider client device, the AR control module selects computer-generated AR elements and instructs the rider client device to visually augment the video stream to identify the driver's vehicle as it approaches the pickup location.