Tag: Uber

[Satire] Taxi Services in India take a Hike

Taxi and Ridesharing services in India have decided to upgrade their services in India to give a boost to the ailing market. Both Multinational entities as well as their local counterparts have decided to take the game to the next level.

UberMob and OlaMafia

Uber and Ola have launched their new services: UberMob and OlaMafia, although it is unclear at this point as to who launched what first. Touted as the first legitimate Taxi service for Gangsters, both companies are looking to great successes with the new launch.

On condition of anonymity, an employee at Uber stated, “We want Indians to experience the same feeling that people living on Staten Island experience.” When contacted, an employee of Ola retorted, “We just want our customers to experience an Uber ride in Delhi”. Industry sources stated that the two were keen on emulating an American local cab fleet that protested against Uber with taxicabs designed like cars owned by mobsters, complete with doors without handles on the inside of the car. Uber officials were rumoured to be deputing their notorious Delhi service provider range for this, while Ola has been said to favour its Bangalore fleet’s drivers.

Excited Uber employees also leaked out news that the company was willing to try out something drastic, like attaching a city bus after Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was seen taking a ride in a BEST bus. Ola employees, coincidentally, within minutes leaked out plans to expand OlaBoats to include a submarine, specially for Mumbai and Chennai rains.

Handicar

Handicar from South Park.
Handicar from South Park. Image copyright Comedy Central.

American Network Comedy Central announced its foray into the Personal Transport space with Handicar. Handicar, which formed the basis of a South Park episode, involves a Wheelchair user with a Cart attached behind it. Drivers wear a cap, known as a “Handicap”. Users are a provided a complimentary snack and beverage.

A South Park Studios animator anonymously stated that the company intended to redraw the Handicar with Toon Boom, and print it using a 3D printer. Handicar drivers would also be provided with a Mask of Timmy’s face which would be fitted with a Voice box that would randomly yell “Timmy!” with different variations and tones. They were keen on starting the service in India because they liked the booming ride-sharing industry and the fact that it would be easy to run the vehicle without a permit.

When contacted, Kyle Broflovski and Stan Marsh were unable for comment. Eric Cartman was attending the funeral of Kenny McCormick. Kenny was last killed when his orange parka got caught under the wheels of a Handicar.

Handicar is coming to India! Share on X

Mooch

In a Desi-twist, Avinash Sharma, who claims to be the “Sharmaji ke bete” who scores higher than all the boys around him, announced a new service named ‘Mooch’. Twirling his mustache, he said, “Mooch is a brand name, identifiable by both its name and appearance. The Mustache is a true man’s identity. Mooch seeks to create a brand of it.” When asked if the idea of Mooch might violate trademarks of Lyft in the USA, Sharmaji’s son replied, “There the cab has a mooch, here the driver has a mooch. The cab has a fluorescent pink mooch that lights up and our drivers will have a jet-black [Kesh Kala] mooch that will be waxed nicely. Only drivers with a mustache similar to mine will be employed.”

Recruitment is going on to hire mustached drivers for Mooch. 35 drivers have been selected so far, across a two week period, with many of them emerging from Kanpur and parts of Chhattisgarh as well as from the Satyamangalam forest which used to be the former hideout of the notorious bandit Veerappan. Training is being given to potential drivers to groom their mooch well.

Presenting Mooch- The Mustached way to travel! Share on X

B’Ve

Started by a student as a dedication to his professor of a prestigious Media College, in Western India, B’Ve is touted to be an upper luxury hatchback service. While no major details are available at this time, it is rumoured that all drivers are to have long hair in a Bandana and drive Maroon-coloured Hyundai i20s.

(S)mooch

A rather cliched startup, this is a product of AyyoLabs. “We aren’t trying to imitate Mooch”, says founder Raghu Iyer. He adds, “(S)mooch is much more than ride-sharing. It’s life-sharing. It’s a combination of a ride-sharing app as well as a dating app. Couples looking for a ride are randomly matched on the basis of what they enter on their profile. The profile data is cross-checked and verified with their parents, and Kundlis. The service is right now only available for TamBrahms”.

Ride-sharing is old, it's now time for life-sharing! Share on X

With such massive changes in the transport industry, we have a lot coming in in the near future.

Apart from this, you also have the choice of taking Hawala Travels.

Note: All content in this article is fictitious, and must not be taken seriously. This article is satire, and should ideally be treated as such.

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Motorcycle Taxis: Zooming Past Traffic

Motorcycle taxis in India have been in existence since the 1980s.

Founded in 1980, The Goa Motorcycle Taxi Riders Association (GMTRA) was set up to operate two-wheeler taxis in the state. The following year, the Government of Goa began issuing licences to riders, known as Pilots. They use Yellow-coloured motorcycles and have fixed rates.

Pilots waiting to pick up passengers at a Motor Cycle Taxi Stand in Vasco da Gama, Goa.
Pilots waiting to pick up passengers at a Motor Cycle Taxi Stand in Vasco da Gama, Goa. Image copyright AaronC, CC-BY-SA 2.0 Generic, available on the Wikimedia Commons/Flickr.

In June 2015, a company called HeyTaxi started two-wheeler taxi services in Mumbai. Taxis could be booked using an app. A few months later, a Bangalore based startup called HeyBob began offering the same services. Here too, taxis were to be booked with an app.

What happened next?

The Regional Transport Authority [RTA] in both states began preparing various guidelines and regulations for bike taxis. That is, until Maharashtra’s Transport Minister Diwakar Raote decided that “Such taxis are extremely unsafe and should not be allowed” and rejected the proposal of the RTA to permit them with a fixed colour-code and fare slab on the lines of existing autos and taxis in the city.  Karnataka meanwhile said that the Transport Department could issue such permits, but the State Government would have to notify guidelines for their operations. In spite of this inanity, both HeyTaxi and HeyBob continue to operate today.

Bike Taxi Stand at HUDA City Centre.
Bike Taxi Stand at HUDA City Centre, Gurgaon. Image copyright Srikanth Ramakrishnan, CC-BY-SA 4.0 International, available on the Wikimedia Commons.

In late 2015, two companies Baxi and m-Taxi started offering Bike Taxi services in Haryana’s commercial capital of Gurgaon. With inadequate public transit in Gurgaon, they were quite successful. Taxis can be booked using an app, or hailed from a taxi stand like the picture above. Both companies had the necessary permits from the Haryana government and were looking to expand services into neighbouring Delhi.

Now, in a significant move that will boost the Motorcycle Taxi industry in India, Uber announced the launch of UberMoto, a move that was emulated by its local rival OlaCabs within hours as Ola Bikes. Both services are confined to Bengaluru as of now. Both have a minimum fare of ₹15, with Uber charging ₹3/km and Ola charging ₹2/km thereafter.

Given the massive userbase that Ola and Uber enjoy, this is going to be a big advantage to the entire industry. The advantage Ola and Uber will enjoy is that existing customers merely have to update the app. However, existing service providers have experience in dealing with the industry and traffic, and as existing entities, can also slash prices to compete with the two giants. HeyTaxi also allows people to send shipments across Mumbai using its fleet.

It remains to be seen how this will affect streets. Hopefully, it will help rationalise and streamline traffic, rather than mess things up more.

We look forward to women driving Motorcycle taxis in India.

UberMoto and OlaBikes have arrived. What next? Share on X

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Travis takes the Bus

The Uber guy took a bus. Yes, that’s right.

Travis Kalanick, Founder and CEO of Uber, the ride-sharing app was in India recently, where he was present as an invitee to the Launch program of the Government of India’s Start-Up India program.

Post this event in Delhi, he made his way to Mumbai for an event at IIT-Bombay where he spoke about Entrepreneurship and Jugaad with Ronnie Screwvala, Founder and Former CEO of the UTV Group.

This is what Travis had to say, after he took a ride in a BEST bus.

Travis runs a company that is valued at $20billion. Never mind the fact that Uber has been banned in several countries, and several parts of India as well, for various reasons, from Regulatory issues, to Safety, to flouting Online Transaction Norms to apparent Monopolisation of the market.

All said and done, Uber has a significant presence in India. It has done better than its desi competition Ola Cabs, which has launched services such as Ola Cafe, Ola Market, etc to keep up with the competition. Uber has also eaten into a significant chunk of not only BESTs revenue, but the revenue of many Transcos across the globe.

When the CEO of a ridesharing company takes a bus, and talks of Jugaad, it means something. The impact of this, is reasonably significant.

I’m going to take this as a reminder that BMTC is getting a new Intelligent Transport System, which, from what is visible is a Trimax Project.

The new BMTC ITS will soon provide live data of buses on an app, similar to what BEST had proposed and what even NMMT had mentioned.

Travis came to India to talk at the launch Startup India. The need of the hour is for an Indian StartUp to set up a proper Research and Development firm in India with partnership or support of international players so that we can have a set of Intelligent Transit Systems in India which will br better suited for Indian projects, since each Transco [road, rail and water] in India has a different story.

We hope that Startup India results in something as bright as this post itself. Indian startups have the potential to do wonders in the field of transport. Trimax revolutionised the Ticketing scene across India, and went one step further in the field of Temple Management as well. The next few years are crucial as companies like Uber and Ola have been eating up into revenues of various Transcos and some of them, like BEST, PMPML, and BMTC are doing their bit to innovate to bring back the passengers and thus, give us more options on the road.

Remember, Travis took BEST, so let’s make BEST great again!

You can take an NMMT or a TMT, but if you’re within MCGM territory, go ahead, take a BEST. Bring out the BEST within you.

You could also book thru Hawala Travels.

When @travisK took a BEST bus! Share on X

This blog post is inspired by the blogging marathon hosted on IndiBlogger for the launch of the #Fantastico Zica from Tata Motors. You can apply for a test drive of the hatchback Zica today.

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The changing face of Mumbai’s Taxis

Most of us associate a taxi in Mumbai with just one entity: The Black-and-Yellow Premier Padmini. I’m going to attempt to track Taxis in Bombay to their current scenario.

A black and yellow Premier Padmini Taxi on the Streets of Mumbai.
A black and yellow Premier Padmini Taxi on the Streets of Mumbai. Image copyright Ask27, CC-BY-SA 3.0, available on the Wikimedia Commons.

These cabs have been on the roads for decades and have remained the undisputed maharajas of South Bombay. They had competition from only one other entity; the Cool Cab. The Cool Cab is a better vehicle; often a Santro, Indica, or a WagonR. They are Blue in colour and air-conditioned. Naturally, their fares are higher.

A Blue Cool Cab on the Streets of Mumbai.
A Blue Cool Cab on the Streets of Mumbai. Image copyright Ask27, CC-BY-SA 4.0, available on the Wikimedia Commons.

Taxis first made their appearance in the city in 1911, to complement horse-drawn carriages. Traditionally, these taxis operate in the same way taxis operate across the world. The driver gets a Transport-Vehicle licence. Either the driver, or the owner buys the vehicle, approaches the Regional Transport Authority [RTA] for a commercial registration and a Taxicab permit. Then the vehicle is registered to one of the Unions operating under the jurisdiction of the Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Transport Authority [MMRTA].

Under Maharashtra regulations, a cab, like an auto cannot refuse a fare. As long as the Fare-Meter says ‘For Hire’ on it, the taxi driver has to take the commuter to their destination.

For years, these taxis [along with the blue counterparts] remained the primary for-hire service in the city, especially the South, where Autorickshaws are banned to reduce congestion.

The first step towards change, was in 2007 with the appearance of the Fullora Gold Taxi. The Fullora Foundation was an NGO that set up the Mumbai Gold Cab Company. Regular taxi owners were invited to join the company. The deal included the sale of their old Premier Padmini, getting ₹25,000 in hand, shares in the company, a new taxi as well as insurance. A move that the Mumbai Taximens Union vehemently opposed. Among the various reasons to oppose it, the Taxi Union stated that the plan would fail as they would not have a taxi stand and would operate round the clock. When launched, they had a fare lower than that of the standard Cool Cab. The fleet was composed of Esteems, Indigos and similar saloons.

A Fullora Gold Cab in Mumbai.
A Fullora Gold Cab in Mumbai. Image Copyright Mumbai Gold Cabs, All Rights Reserved.

The period witnessed a boom in private cab operations with other players such as Meru, and the all-women Priyadarshini and Forsche joining the bandwagon.

What did this mean for the Common Man in Bombay?

Private cabs can be called when needed. This eliminates the need to look out for a taxi stand. They are mostly monitored by GPS. This makes it easy to track the cab. What really made me happy is the advent of Women-only cabs. Forsche [now Viira] and Priyadarshini cabs. Giving women drivers opportunities, and of course, women passengers feel safer that way.

What happened then?

By 2010, the market was saturated with many call-taxi operators, many of whom had pan-India operations, such as Meru, Mega Cabs, Easy Cabs, TabCabs, et al. The regular black-and-yellow as well as Cool Cabs continue to operate today, as do the Gold Cabs. Somewhere in 2011 Ola Cabs appeared on the scene as a taxi aggregator service. This was followed by Uber and other services. Surprisingly, however, Mumbai was fifth on Uber’s list. Ola and its subsidiary TaxiForSure [TFS], later on tied up with autos to allow you to find an auto on the spot with the app. TFS also launched Tata Nanos in Bangalore, although these are yet to be seen on the streets of Mumbai. Soon, others such as Meru, and TabCab too, lanched their mobile apps.

The scenario today:

The scenario today is rather simple.  If you are in SoBo, you can hail a cab as easy as hailing an auto. Autos and Taxis, traditionally in Bombay have been honest, and rarely overcharge. However, if one is not carrying cash, then an Uber, or Ola would make sense, particularly due to the extremely low fares they charge from their users. Cabs, in the long run do help get user of private vehicles off the streets, but they are among the reasons why BEST is reducing its AC fleet. Its good to see technology being put to good use, for the benefit of the consumer, be it prepaid wallets and Mobile Apps for booking, or Prepaid RFID cards for buses.

 

 

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