Said the company honcho.
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Among other companies, online travel group Ibibo had launched a carpooling app named Ryde in April. The discount rate will vary according to the time of day, demand and distance.
Pool makes cab hailing facility cheaper whereas drivers get continuous rides.
“What we have noticed in most cities is that a vast majority of trips begin and end at the same places”. Uber claims to have ample security measures in place. With many players entering the carpooling market and even Ola planning to launch similar services, Uber is confident that their quality of service will stand apart given that they have already rolled out these services globally. Ola says, that it has taken care of user privacy as the feature allows customers to travel with users from social groups they choose to be part of, without having to share their ride with strangers. To enable this, Ola has introduced the concept of social groups on its app. With Groups, colleagues from a workplace and friends from a college can come together to share rides amongst themselves. Once additional user’s en-route is identified, the driver’s device gets an alert with navigation to their pickup location within minutes, to join the ride. A maximum of 3 people can share a cab together via Ola Share.
This feature may reduce a consumer’s anxiety around co-passengers and security.
“With “Share”, we not only bring economy, convenience and comfort of travelling with people in your circles, but also increased inventory utilisation of vehicles on the platform”. This will also contribute towards significant reduction of traffic, congestion and pollution in our cities. Meru Cabs is one of the recent entrants in this space.
WestBridge Capital-backed Carzonrent India Pvt Ltd, which runs radio cab services besides offering self-drive vehicle rental and fleet management services, recently acquired Bangalore-based 42 Solutions Pvt Ltd, which runs a ride-sharing app RidingO.
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Ola, which is backed by marquee names such as Falcon Edge Capital, Tiger Global Management, Japan’s SoftBank and China’s Didi Kuaidi, aims to cover 200 cities by the year-end.
