Long-distance rideshares: More viable model for India?

Carpooling is a concept that is globally adopted to decongest city roads by encouraging office goers to join and share a car

Car users in India are increasingly pooling vehicles to commute between two cities rather than for local travel, say carpool operators. But globally, it is the otherwise.  “The real takeoff in carpooling has happened in India. There is better takeoff for intercity carpooling than intracity,” said Raghav Gupta, country manager of BlaBlaCar, a Paris-based carpooling marketplace.

Carpooling is being promoted to decongest city roads by encouraging office-goers to join and share a car to commute to their places of work. The user base is also largely different in India, not just office-goers, but informal groups who share their plans through social networks.

Most of India’s major cities are congested, with an average peak-hour traffic speed of 10 km per hour.

SHARE YOUR RIDE

• Paris-based carpooling marketplace BlaBlaCar has 20 million members and is serving 700 cities in India
• Brazil-based Tripda, which started its Indian operations in November last year, witnessed a 100 per cent month-on-month growth with about 100,000 riders as of June
• Delhi-based intracity carpooling start-up Orahi has about 27,000 users on its platform in Delhi and is soon expanding to other cities

When BlaBlaCar was launched in India in January, they hoped the home-to-office riders would be its main clientele. But this segment saw the slowest growth. “Our riders are mostly those travelling a distance of more than 50-600 km or upwards of an hour in duration,” said Gupta.

BlaBlaCar has served about 700 cities in India within eight months. It has 20 million members using the web and mobile-based platform globally. The company does not reveal its geographical break of numbers. However, about 300,000 seats have been shared on BlaBlaCar in the first six months. “The growth is promising. We grew from 100,000 seat shares in first three months to more than 300,000 in six months,” Gupta added.

Sector experts say the fear of getting late to office due to delay caused by somebody else or heavy traffic, which is always not in the hands of individuals, are the major hurdles for intracity carpooling.

Nitish Bhushan, who heads the Asia operations at Tripda, said, “Unlike other businesses, we have to build both supply and demand and that too at localised levels. Hence, the approach towards ridesharing business is different from marketing for other businesses. We have adopted a route-by-route approach towards expansion.”

Tripda, which refused to share country-wise numbers, has grown up to 2,50,000 users across the globe in a year. In India, where it started operations in November last year, it witnessed a 100 per cent month-on-month growth with about 100,000 riders as of June. The Brazil-based company has connected riders across 400 cities in India.

According to data available, with about 15 million cars in eight major cities, India had about 150 million registered vehicles as of December 31, 2012. This is expected to increase exponentially as 450 million vehicles are expected to take to the Indian roads by 2020. “Hence, carpooling or ridesharing will definitely be a necessity than an alternative commutative option for people in the country,” said Anurag Rathore, chief executive officer of Zify, a Hyderabad-based intracity car ridesharing startup.

Mumbai-Pune, Delhi-Chandigarh, Bengaluru-Chennai and Bengaluru-Hyderabad are the most popular routes for ridesharing in India. Lack of sufficient train connectivity, undersupply of train seats, cheaper commutation and well-built roads are the primary reasons for the surge of carpooling rides in India. For instance, the Bengaluru-Hyderabad route, which is about 600 km, but takes only 9-10 hours on road, is one of the popular routes for BlaBlaCar.

In addition to these, use of innovative means to ensure safety are also one of the major reasons for this new-found interest in ridesharing. Startups in intracity as well as intercity rideshare segment have adopted similar verification practices for this. Verification of social media profiles including Facebook and LinkedIn, peer-to-peer ratings and car owner-rider ratings are the popular mechanisms.

Also, in-built chat services on mobile applications to connect car owners and riders are also driving convenient riding. "When we studied, one of the major hurdles for riders as well as car owners was to begin the initial interaction with an unknown individual. Introduction of chat-based messaging services on our app has done away with that to a great extent," said Sameer Khanna, founder of a Delhi-based intracity carpooling startup Orahi (formerly FolksVagn). Orahi has about 27,000 users on its platform in Delhi alone and is soon expanding to other cities.

CLARIFICATION
An earlier version of this article misstated last name of Sameer Khanna as Khan.