Uber targets India's $13 billion corporate transportation market

Ride-hailing giant expands employee transportation services as GCCs fuel demand

Uber is expanding beyond individual riders in India to target the corporate transportation market, which the company estimated could reach $13 billion by 2030. According to the ride-hailing giant, ferrying office workers to IT parks, factories, and global capability centers will deliver the scale and predictable demand that only a few mobility segments offer. 

 

“It's a very, very large opportunity—not just for India, but even for Uber globally,” said Nikolaas Van de Loock, general manager, Uber Shuttle for Europe, Middle East, and Africa and India (EMEA), noting the push reflects growth in the country's corporate ecosystem.

 

India is witnessing rapid growth in GCCs, IT parks, manufacturing hubs, and large enterprises, creating significant structural demand for organised employee transportation. Industry estimates suggest that India's corporate transportation market could reach about $13 billion by 2030. 

Van de Loock said the company began experimenting with large commute patterns seven to eight years ago. What began as a pilot in Egypt was quickly pivoted to India, driven by the market's scale, congestion challenges and clearly defined commute patterns in cities such as Delhi. Those factors revealed a strong product-market fit for Uber Shuttle.

 

The experience taught Uber to build technology to place multiple riders in a single vehicle.

 

Discussions with firms showed Uber was well positioned to compete in the sector, Van de Loock said, citing Uber as the largest fleet provider in India, with access to vehicles at scale and across geographies. Technology was the company's second advantage, built over 10 to 15 years of matching multiple riders into a single car, including lessons from Uber Shuttle's B2C operations. About three years ago, Uber decided to build its own employee transport solution for India, hiring local engineers and operations staff to develop the product.

 

“We rolled it out in our own offices in Hyderabad and Bengaluru and sandboxed the technology for about a year and a half with very promising results,” said Van de Loock. “Since then, we've started rolling it out externally and we're seeing very positive signals from clients and the market.”

 

Uber's employee transportation service creates routes dynamically, based on where employees live and who needs to be transported on a given day. This approach allows for efficient route optimisation, high vehicle utilisation and reliable commute experiences.

 

“On unit economics, it's promising because the model is predictable,” said Van de Loock. “We can put more people into one vehicle, we can drive down costs for clients and reduce the number of cars on the road. That also aligns with congestion and policy narratives.”

 

Van de Loock said the employee transport business differs from Uber's marketplace rides in its use of dedicated fleets assigned to clients, with vehicles cross-dispatched to the broader marketplace during downtime. That platform model allows drivers to serve clients during peak shifts and still operate on the marketplace, benefiting drivers while helping lower prices for clients, he said

 

Uber Shuttle is the company's B2C business using large-format vehicles, while its employee transport services (ETS) is a B2B product that largely relies on four- and six-seaters. Uber has begun introducing shuttles into ETS for certain clients, with policy pressure around pollution accelerating the move, Van de Loock said.

 

On this business segment would become a significant growth engine for Uber, Van de Loock said it would, pointing to a $6 billion opportunity already being spent with offline providers in an industry ripe for technology. The opportunity would be meaningful for India and potentially global, he said, noting that while the product is being built for India first, it could later scale to regions such as the Middle East or Latin America, where support centers are also located.

 

Van de Loock said Uber's client base is concentrated in IT and finance, with operations primarily in tier-one cities such as Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru and Gurgaon. The company follows demand and can operate in smaller cities given its national presence, though the primary emphasis remains on tier-one markets, he said.

 

He said the most common concerns raised by CHROs (chief human resources officers) are safety and compliance. Because ETS is built into Uber's core platform, safety features such as SOS buttons, helplines and rapid-response teams are available, he said.

 

Van de Loock said employee transportation is evolving into a 24/7 business, driven by GCCs supporting U.S. and Australian time zones and requiring multiple daily shifts—shifting from two route optimizations to ten. He said the company also aims to deploy higher-capacity vehicles, noting that carrying 18 passengers with the same route deviation as four benefits clients, employees, and the environment. Reducing the number of cars on the road is a major challenge Uber plans to tackle in the coming years, he added.