Ticket to ride

LUNCH WITH BS | PRABHJEET SINGH | PRESIDENT, UBER INDIA & SOUTH ASIA | From addressing cab aggregator irritants to Uber's next 10 years in India, Singh drives Nivedita Mookerji through the firm's journey

- Nivedita Mookerji

I choose to book a neighbourhood rental caba change from my usual Uber routine-to reach The Oberoi in Gurugram on time. I'm on my way to meet Prabhjeet Singh, president, Uber India and South Asia, for lunch at Threesixtyone Degrees to talk about the company's 10-year journey in the country.

The guest has arrived before time and so have I. But unlike me, he's chosen an Uber cab"everyone's private driver", as the company advertises. He says he travels by Uber all the time, and once in a while, also drives cabs on the platform to understand its users better. I ask him if the passengers are able to tell who he is. "No," he replies, but there was this passenger who found him to be different from the typical cab driver and got chatting. The passenger Googled his name and figured out who he was.

As we talk about user experience, I decide to share mine as a daily Uber customer-the convenience of hailing a cab on an app and the hassles that come with the facelessness of the service. Cancellation of trips by the drivers, if they want to go on another route or would rather be paid in cash instead of by card, is an irritant on any cab aggregator platform, including Uber, and I seek "expert opinion" on it. The IIT Kharagpur-IIM Ahmedabad alumnus responds patiently, explaining that Uber has addressed the issue of cancellations to a large extent by making the destination known to the driver beforehand. He also tells me that drivers' preference for cash payment was a post-pandemic trend as they faced a completely dry season during Covid-19, and that issue was more or less resolved.