One For All

Public transport is cheap but erratic. So you could opt to carpool, as a driver or a passenger, thanks to these start-ups who are even winning the confidence of big corporate clients

- Hari Menon

You have a meeting about four to five kilometres from your office in half an hour. How do you get there on time? This is 2019, so you are probably opening your taxi app. It’s not cheap. Back in 2015-16, Ola used to charge 8 per km. Today, it’s more to the tune of 15-20 per km. Mind you, even Ola Auto charges 10-12 per km. Multiply that amount by 1.5 and you have Uber’s rates. How about a solution that can take you from point A to point B at 5 per km? That’s what companies such as Quick Ride, sRide, and even international brands such as BlaBlaCar offer.

Their service, carpooling, is by no means a new idea. Perhaps, the odd office colleague already offers a ride back home or a morning pickup when driving by your place. But that is not really reliable. If the colleague falls sick, despite having planned a shared ride with you, you can hardly haul him/her up. That is where the young companies promise better.

Quick Ride co-founder KNM Rao says, “The app offer facilities such as real-time ride matches, to help you coordinate without having to make calls back and forth.” These start-ups tie up with car owner and drivers who pick up people on the way to their destination. The drivers do not really earn from this, instead they get to share their fuel costs and get a few perks.

As per Rao, “Carpooling has a current market potential for $3 billion, of which just 2% or so is being tapped.” He expects the market to grow to $5 billion by 2025. The cities that are plagued with traffic congestion and infrastructure troubles, such as Mumbai and Bengaluru, are quick adopters. For instance, Bengaluru has roughly 500,000 of Quick Ride’s user base, while sRide claims 300,000 users each in packed cities such as Chennai and Hyderabad. Both are spreading their roots in Mumbai but refrained from divulging the number of users in the city.