Bengaluru: Despite opposition from traditional cab operators and allegations of violations of the norms laid down in the Motor Vehicle Act by the transport department, Ola seems to be expanding every day.
With over 250,000 vehicles across the country, the cab aggregator is running 750,000 rides daily. This is not all. They are adding over 1,500 vehicles to their fleet every day.
There is a paradigm shift among consumers after Ola arrived on the scene. Today, many more passengers are opting for this mode of transport due to its convenience and reasonable cost. Anand Subramanian, Senior Director, Marketing Communications, Ola, says, “Among all the cities, Bengaluru is our largest market. We are growing at the rate of 40 per cent every month here. We have started adding auto rickshaws to our network only last year in September-October and already we have close to 15,000 auto rickshaws under our umbrella. The response has been tremendous and this is undoubtedly due to the booking experience.”
He continues, “A large number of auto rickshaws are approaching us. It solves the problem of reaching from point A to B and negates the old short-distance issue,” he adds. Additionally, Ola is coming up with a lot of new features like Ola store app and Ola café, which deliver goods and food in a short time. On the safety aspect of passengers using Ola services, Subramanian adds, “We have two layers of GPS system in place. 10 layers of verification process for the drivers. There is a facility in the app to store emergency contacts who can track the passenger’s movements.”
A common grouse among passengers is that the cab operators don’t take bookings over the phone, Subramanian explains, “We are taking all the bookings on the app now due to a few reasons. Firstly, 99 per cent of the bookings are done through the app so its makes sense to move one system into one platform. Besides, the experience of the app is more seamless, the tracking system is better. The customer service centre supports the app and takes note of the grievances of people.”
