Ola opens API to partners, developers

Taxi aggregator Ola announce it has publicly released its Application Programme Interface (API) to major mobile applications and individual developers to integrate Ola's offerings onto their platforms.

"The public release of our API to developers is a giant leap in collaborative technology. With this step, we would open up access to many more millions of users from our partners," said Ola co-founder and CTO Ankit Bhati on Saturday.

API is a set of instructions which enables interaction between two platforms. With this collaboration, Ola's partner brands Samsung, InMobi, MakeMyTrip, Helpchat and others can offer Ola's services right from their apps.

"For example, with the API integration, MakeMyTrip offers a customer to book an Ola cab to an airport after he books a flight right on MakeMyTrip app. The customer can book the cab right from MakeMyTrip app without the need to necessarily open the Ola app," said Ola's director, marketing communications, Anand Subramanian.

The new technology collaboration allows customers to access ride availability, estimation, booking and tracking and also empowering partner apps to complete the service experience to users with Ola, he added.

Already, many other leading mobile apps and technology companies are working on syncing their apps with Ola's API. The integration will also be expanded to include Ola Money in the future.

Founded by IIT - Bombay alumni Bhavish Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati in January, 2011, Ola operates in over 100 Indian cities.