Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has arguably received more flak than appreciation for his government’s plan to restrict cars on the road with odd and even numbered plates on alternate days for a 15-day trial beginning January 1, 2016.
Many contend that the concept has not worked anywhere else in the world. But what it certainly seems to have done is to generate awareness and make people think of ways to get by. The very announcement seems to have brought the concept of carpooling into public consciousness which, despite its obvious benefits of reduced fuel costs and ability to reduce congestion, has never really taken off in the city.
According to available data, barely 10% of the people in Delhi use their cars for commuting to work, but they end up taking about up to 85% of the road-space. It is estimated that almost 70% of cars on the city roads only ferry one person at any given time.
Necessity has already proved to be the mother of invention for many new-age mobile apps, and the idea seems to be gathering steam as Delhiites open up their car doors for other passengers on the same route.
Fresh change
Take the case of Vaibhav Aggarwal, a financial analyst with a multinational in Gurgaon, who drives 40 kilometres every day to Gurgaon from his home in Rohini.
“I realised it’s better to carpool and allow those looking to go in the same direction to ride with me rather than each of us take different cars and clog up the roads,” Aggarwal said. “I have been doing it for two months and with the odd-even policy announcement, requests for rides have only increased.”
Aggarwal uses an application called Ibibo Ryde, which allows people to sign up and quickly start offering or availing rides from a list of commuters going in the same direction. A Delhi-Gurgaon trip comes as cheap as Rs 30 per person for riders and the car owner can recover a substantial fraction of their fuel costs through these apps.
“I recover my fuel expenses and even maintenance expenses,” Aggarwal said. There’s no dearth of riders looking for rides to and from hubs such as Gurgaon and Noida, Aggarwal added. “Three out of four seats in my car are full on a regular basis. There are a lot of new people signing up too who want to try it out once or twice before giving up their cars.”
Windfall for companies
Companies such as Ibibo Ryde, BlaBlaCar, and Orahi have captured a substantial share of Delhi’s carpool market even though they all agree that it’s only a fraction of the potential size. This is probably what prompted taxi hailing app Uber, which is already facing regulatory hurdles in the Capital, to roll out its own ride-share service on Wednesday.
The service will now allow those taking cabs to offer a ride to passengers travelling in real time and the company claims that it will end up saving riders up to 30%-40% on fares. While there are concerns about how efficient the real-time service would be for regular commuters who prefer pre-planned trips such as those offered on BlaBlaCar and other ride-sharing apps specifically catering to this market, Uber’s entry is being taken as a signal that the market is far from saturated.
“The potential for ride-sharing is immense in the country and specifically in Delhi,” said Raghav Gupta, Country Manager of BlaBlaCar which entered India at the beginning of this year. The company claims to have offered over 10 lakh seats in less than 11 months of its operations in this country as Gupta said that Delhi’s ridership is among the highest.
“Over the last few weeks when odd-even policy began dominating the news, our sign-ups have gone up immensely and we are expecting a lot more people to list their rides as January 1 approaches,” he said. “Just last week there were 15,000-20,000 seats on offer in the National Capital Region and this is bound to go up once users try it for the first time.”
A similar story has unfolded for Orahi.com which is also a ride-sharing app operating in multiple cities but with special focus on the national capital region. The platform is not too different from its peers but it works on a cashless basis as all transactions are done online so there’s no embarrassment or apprehension of exchanging cash after each ride, the company said.
“Odd-even policy has pushed up our registrations substantially,” said Honey Monga, Alliance Manager of Orahi. “At least 100 people are registering every day from Delhi ever since odd-even policy was announced and we are currently doing up to 400-500 trips in the capital every day.”
Smoothening out the rough edges
The story of carpooling in the city, however, is not all rosy and smooth as many who have been sharing their cars for some time say that it’s tough to find compatible co-riders while others complain that security concerns come in their way of trying it out.
“I’d love to ride-share with someone and save on my cabs expenditure but one never knows how safe these services are,” said Ankita Jain, an HR professional in Gurgaon. “I tried carpooling with a coworker once and things became awkward when we had to calculate fuel expenses and our respective contributions.”
Not all, however, are using apps as people rely on their personal and social networks to find co-passengers to counter the rigidity of systems being offered by carpool apps and to arrive at their own respective models. Facebook and Twitter too are proving to be excellent sources of finding fellow passengers as people prefer to research about a person before signing them up.
Richa Walia, another HR professional, who works in Gurgaon but lives in West Delhi, solved the security problem by offering rides to only female co-passengers and tapped into her network of friends rather than going through some apps.
“I have been carpooling for more than a year now and initially I took up only women co-riders due to safety concerns,” Walia said. “Then we rented a private vehicle every day and shared it among three-four of us. I don’t feel secure in riding in someone else’s car.”
Meanwhile, there are many who are excited to try sharing their rides for the first time and see what it is all about. “I don’t know how the economics of it will work out for someone like me who travels infrequently and to different locations each time,” said Gaurav Sethi, a freelance advertising professional. “But I have signed up on three-four apps and I will give all of them a try before making a decision on what works best. What’s the harm if people can save money and do something for the environment?"
This, Raghav Gupta from BlaBlaCar said, could be a sign of changing times. “There are going to be lots of people who will have to use carpool forcibly during the trial period and they will sign up on these services,” he said. “But we are expecting many of them to start carpooling regularly even after the trial run because it will act as an initiation and consciousness about being environment friendly is also growing.”
Nobody is sure how the odd-even policy will pan out in implementation, least of all the government. But, for now, at least some Delhiites seem to be getting all set to try out carpooling.
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Many contend that the concept has not worked anywhere else in the world. But what it certainly seems to have done is to generate awareness and make people think of ways to get by. The very announcement seems to have brought the concept of carpooling into public consciousness which, despite its obvious benefits of reduced fuel costs and ability to reduce congestion, has never really taken off in the city.
According to available data, barely 10% of the people in Delhi use their cars for commuting to work, but they end up taking about up to 85% of the road-space. It is estimated that almost 70% of cars on the city roads only ferry one person at any given time.
Necessity has already proved to be the mother of invention for many new-age mobile apps, and the idea seems to be gathering steam as Delhiites open up their car doors for other passengers on the same route.
Fresh change
Take the case of Vaibhav Aggarwal, a financial analyst with a multinational in Gurgaon, who drives 40 kilometres every day to Gurgaon from his home in Rohini.
“I realised it’s better to carpool and allow those looking to go in the same direction to ride with me rather than each of us take different cars and clog up the roads,” Aggarwal said. “I have been doing it for two months and with the odd-even policy announcement, requests for rides have only increased.”
Aggarwal uses an application called Ibibo Ryde, which allows people to sign up and quickly start offering or availing rides from a list of commuters going in the same direction. A Delhi-Gurgaon trip comes as cheap as Rs 30 per person for riders and the car owner can recover a substantial fraction of their fuel costs through these apps.
“I recover my fuel expenses and even maintenance expenses,” Aggarwal said. There’s no dearth of riders looking for rides to and from hubs such as Gurgaon and Noida, Aggarwal added. “Three out of four seats in my car are full on a regular basis. There are a lot of new people signing up too who want to try it out once or twice before giving up their cars.”
Windfall for companies
Companies such as Ibibo Ryde, BlaBlaCar, and Orahi have captured a substantial share of Delhi’s carpool market even though they all agree that it’s only a fraction of the potential size. This is probably what prompted taxi hailing app Uber, which is already facing regulatory hurdles in the Capital, to roll out its own ride-share service on Wednesday.
The service will now allow those taking cabs to offer a ride to passengers travelling in real time and the company claims that it will end up saving riders up to 30%-40% on fares. While there are concerns about how efficient the real-time service would be for regular commuters who prefer pre-planned trips such as those offered on BlaBlaCar and other ride-sharing apps specifically catering to this market, Uber’s entry is being taken as a signal that the market is far from saturated.
“The potential for ride-sharing is immense in the country and specifically in Delhi,” said Raghav Gupta, Country Manager of BlaBlaCar which entered India at the beginning of this year. The company claims to have offered over 10 lakh seats in less than 11 months of its operations in this country as Gupta said that Delhi’s ridership is among the highest.
“Over the last few weeks when odd-even policy began dominating the news, our sign-ups have gone up immensely and we are expecting a lot more people to list their rides as January 1 approaches,” he said. “Just last week there were 15,000-20,000 seats on offer in the National Capital Region and this is bound to go up once users try it for the first time.”
A similar story has unfolded for Orahi.com which is also a ride-sharing app operating in multiple cities but with special focus on the national capital region. The platform is not too different from its peers but it works on a cashless basis as all transactions are done online so there’s no embarrassment or apprehension of exchanging cash after each ride, the company said.
“Odd-even policy has pushed up our registrations substantially,” said Honey Monga, Alliance Manager of Orahi. “At least 100 people are registering every day from Delhi ever since odd-even policy was announced and we are currently doing up to 400-500 trips in the capital every day.”
Smoothening out the rough edges
The story of carpooling in the city, however, is not all rosy and smooth as many who have been sharing their cars for some time say that it’s tough to find compatible co-riders while others complain that security concerns come in their way of trying it out.
“I’d love to ride-share with someone and save on my cabs expenditure but one never knows how safe these services are,” said Ankita Jain, an HR professional in Gurgaon. “I tried carpooling with a coworker once and things became awkward when we had to calculate fuel expenses and our respective contributions.”
Not all, however, are using apps as people rely on their personal and social networks to find co-passengers to counter the rigidity of systems being offered by carpool apps and to arrive at their own respective models. Facebook and Twitter too are proving to be excellent sources of finding fellow passengers as people prefer to research about a person before signing them up.
Richa Walia, another HR professional, who works in Gurgaon but lives in West Delhi, solved the security problem by offering rides to only female co-passengers and tapped into her network of friends rather than going through some apps.
“I have been carpooling for more than a year now and initially I took up only women co-riders due to safety concerns,” Walia said. “Then we rented a private vehicle every day and shared it among three-four of us. I don’t feel secure in riding in someone else’s car.”
Meanwhile, there are many who are excited to try sharing their rides for the first time and see what it is all about. “I don’t know how the economics of it will work out for someone like me who travels infrequently and to different locations each time,” said Gaurav Sethi, a freelance advertising professional. “But I have signed up on three-four apps and I will give all of them a try before making a decision on what works best. What’s the harm if people can save money and do something for the environment?"
This, Raghav Gupta from BlaBlaCar said, could be a sign of changing times. “There are going to be lots of people who will have to use carpool forcibly during the trial period and they will sign up on these services,” he said. “But we are expecting many of them to start carpooling regularly even after the trial run because it will act as an initiation and consciousness about being environment friendly is also growing.”
Nobody is sure how the odd-even policy will pan out in implementation, least of all the government. But, for now, at least some Delhiites seem to be getting all set to try out carpooling.