Rideshare 3.0

Roads in our metros aren’t getting less congested anytime soon, but this start-up is making our office commute a little less strenuous.

- Hari Menon

Let’s face it, par-ents are always right. Especially when they tell you to study well and make enough money “so that you can buy the sea-facing flat on Marine Drive.” Forget bragging rights, you could waltz down the Queen’s Necklace promenade and get to work every day. No traffic jams, no three-minute traffic signals, and no hefty fuel bills. Even if the office is in the suburbs, you’d cut through the city like a hot knife through butter, snickering at those struggling to crawl in the opposite lane.

While it’s fun to dream up alternative scenarios and humour yourself, Mumbai’s traffic is no joke. Reported as one of the most congested cities in the world, India’s financial capital has still not learnt how to deal with the ever-increasing population. And it’s not just Mumbai, commuting in every metro city is taxing, soul-wrenching and timeconsuming to say the least. As of last year, the average one-way travel time to get to work, across six major cities, stands at a little above 51 minutes (See: Keeping pace). If you’re from a city, this daily commute saps as much as 24% of your waking hours. But one company is trying to ease this mess by offering a solution that does not require you to struggle in local trains or buses or lose all your energy driving, even before you get to work.

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