Ola Shared Pass does 20 mn rides in 6 mths, shared rides up 5-fold in a yr

Ola says the service has reduced 12 mn kg of carbon dioxide, saved over 7 mn litres of fuel

India's leading ride hailing company Ola has sold over 20 million rides through its Shared Pass subscription service in the past six months, hugely boosting its largest shared ride category.

The company says it witnessed a five-fold growth in the number of shared rides customers took in the past year, with the charge being led by metro cities Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Kolkata.

While the company does not break out numbers for shared and non-shared rides, analysts say ride-sharing is the largest category in India's cab hailing market. Both large players Uber and Ola offer shared rides at nearly 50 per cent the cost of a regular cab ride.

"Ola Share is one of our flagship products and is poised to bring down traffic congestion on roads, which means that people in our cities will spend less time in traffic. We have seen a high uptake for the category on both the customer as well as the driver partner side, that has been a key element in its success," said Vishal Kaul, COO at Ola, in a statement.

With Shared Pass, customers can prepay for a number of rides, which will then be capped to the fare they have already prepaid. An eight kilometer ride will cost riders just Rs 40, but trips over that kilometer limit will be charged at Micro rates. Like other subscription services, Shared Pass will ensure more capital is parked in Ola's coffers while also locking in customers to use its services.

Ola says its shared mobility offering has effectively reduced 12 million kilograms of carbon dioxide and saved over 7 million litres of fuel with the distance travel by cabs reduced by 84 million kilometers, since it began offering the service. The service has been expanded to 26 cities from seven in the past 19 months, the company said.

While the ride hailing space in India is poised to grow over the next few years, for the first time in years growth during the first quarter of 2017 was was seen as slowing. While demand continues to exist, industry watchers point at the increase in fares by both Uber and Ola and also a shortage in supply of cabs due to a high number of days drivers went on protest.

By cutting driver incentives massively over the past one year, Ola and Uber are said to be witnessing massive attrition in top metro cities which drive close to 70 per cent of their business. Even new driver sign-ups are said to be at an all time low, but it is to be seen how the market picks up again.